


we are the greatest pretenders

by chillpills



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Alien!Zayn, Alternate Universe - Space, Android!Harry, Android!Louis, Androids, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M, Self Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:03:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillpills/pseuds/chillpills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You do matter,” he says, roughly. “You matter so much, and you’re not just a computer, because you’re Hazza, and you’re mine, and it doesn’t matter what they say because I think you’re the best person I’ve ever known and I’d be honored to serve with you and - ” Harry tosses the memory drive aside and then throws his arms around Louis and drags him down on top of him, burying his face in Louis’ neck. Louis can feel Harry’s forehead against his false pulse, and hear the quiet sobbing noises he’s making under his ear.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>or: Louis and Harry are androids, Nick developed them with independent emotions, and they get much more than they bargained for with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i sort of have this thing about androids. they're cool.
> 
> most of this is owed to [Kaytie](http://scaredykate.tumblr.com) for being my biggest fangirl while i was writing. seriously. it wouldn't have gotten farther than the first ten pages without her, probably. also to [kelsey](http://nerdintheattic.tumblr.com) for beta-ing and making it better than it was.

Louis doesn’t have parents. He wasn’t born. He woke up one day, alert and fully functional, and looked into the eyes of his creator.

But saying that sort of thing usually kills the conversation, so – his parents are named Jay and Mark Grimshaw, and they live in Doncaster.

AX8D21 (Louis, for the purposes of everyday life) is an android. He was designed specially to serve on a starship. He’s not the came-off-an-assembly-line type of android that they developed early on, delightfully dull as those ’droids may be. His inside parts are the same as the others, but he’s got his own looks and style and personality, just like AX8D22 – Harry – has got his own different looks and style and personality.

Louis’ been cataloguing those looks since he woke up in Nick’s lab. He’d memorized the tiny crinkles by Nick’s eyes before he’d seen the color of his own eyes (blue) or Harry’s, on the next table over (green). Harry has the same smooth silicon skin Louis does, but it’s less tan than Louis’, and his hair is dark and curly, not like Louis’ straight, plain brown hair. He’s taller and broader than Louis, too, and sometimes, when Harry’s got his back turned, Louis likes to watch the shape of his shoulders as he moves. He told Nick that, once, and Nick smiled and looked immensely pleased.

Harry is also bit of a weirdo. This is what Louis decided after a bit of observation in Nick’s lab. But he’s an entertaining weirdo, and seeing as they woke up within minutes of each other, they’re kind of stuck together. Plus, Nick had explained to them, they were a sort of test-run for a new process. Androids are usually downloaded with all of the information they need to know about serving on a starship and sent off straight from the labs, which is what leads to the stick-up-their-ass ’droids Louis runs into in the hallways. It means awkward conversations and humans not really knowing how to deal with them. Just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun, if you ask Louis. So instead of becoming _that_ , Louis and Harry were being enrolled in the Academy, to see if ’droids could do well in a classroom and school setting, and if that would help them assimilate better into a crew of living, breathing humans.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being an android,” Nick had said, hastily. “We just...think you could be better.”

Louis and Harry were still a bit too new to be offended, so he needn’t have worried.

So look - it isn’t that Louis can really hide the fact that he’s actually electronic, but he was told to be a student, and, well, students have brothers and sisters and parents. Not Nick and That Guy I Woke Up Next To. He tries his very hardest to look and act like any other third year Academy student, which would be a lot easier to do if Harry wouldn’t always be taking advantage of his non-humanness. He’s currently drinking a freshman under the table. Louis thinks he should probably go save one or the other.

“Okay, boys and girls,” he says, stepping up behind Harry’s chair with a grin. “I think we’ve all had enough, now, haven’t we?”

Harry snorts, and the freshman looks like he’s going to throw up. “You owe me fifty quid,” Harry tells the guy, perfectly sober. Louis laughs at him and bundles him up and out the door before he can go through with that transaction.

“It’s not fair to take advantage like that, Haz,” Louis says, when they’re out on the street. But he’s giggling, so it’s not exactly an effective deterrent.

“It was just fun. You sound like a lab ’droid,” Harry says.

Louis laughs softly. It pinches him somewhere in his chest when Harry says that. He ignores it.

“We’ve got a test tomorrow,” he says instead.

“We don’t need to sleep.”

“No,” Louis admits, but he steers them towards their flat anyway.

The test goes fine the next morning, though not as fine as it probably should have. Louis blames it on not sleeping and Harry laughs at him. But he can laugh, he got a 100%. As usual.

Louis goes to see Nick later that day. He and Harry have to go in to the lab every couple weeks, tell Nick how they’re doing, talk about what they’re learning. Nick checks all Louis’ circuits, too, because Louis doesn’t like the Academy’s android specialists. They always look at him like he’s some kind of science experiment, which - well, he sort of is, but Nick doesn’t act like it. He just talks to Louis like he’s talking to a friend or younger brother. It’s nice.

“How’re your grades?” Nick asks when Louis gets in.

Louis shrugs. “Good enough,” he says.

“You know Harry’s getting practically perfect scores,” Nick says conversationally. Louis nods. Yes, he knows he ought to be getting perfect scores too, but he can’t really help it when he forgets things, can he?

“You feeling alright?” Nick asks.

A few years ago, Louis would have tilted his head at the question and said something like “I don’t feel anything, Nick, I am made of wires.” Today, he says, “Yeah, I guess.” Nick nods slowly and writes something down. Louis twiddles his thumbs. “Do you think my memory’s getting full?” he asks.

Nick looks up. “Shouldn’t be,” he says, frowning slightly. “Do you want me to take a look at it?”

“Err,” Louis says. Nick’s fiddled with his memory before, it shouldn’t make him tense up, but – it does. “No, that’s fine.”

“Your hair looks nice today, love,” Nick says, smoothly changing the subject. Louis’ animatronic shoulders relax and he preens a bit.

When he gets back to the flat, Harry’s on his knees with an arm under the couch. “I can’t find my charging cable,” he says, a bit panicky. “I haven’t seen it in a week.”

“You can use mine for now,” says Louis. “We’ll go get you a new one tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go get a new one,” Harry says, huffing. “I want mine.”

“You probably left it in the lab, or something.”

“I should call Nick,” says Harry, standing up. “Maybe he can send me one.”

“Look, it’s no bother to just go down to the ’droid station - ”

“I don’t want to go to the station!” Harry shouts. Then he looks down at his feet sheepishly. “I don’t want people to see me there,” he says, quieter.

Oh. Right. Louis nods. “Mine’s in my room,” he says. Harry nods, brushes his hair out of his eyes, and disappears down the hallway.

 

 

*

 

“Hey, loverboy.” Harry snaps his fingers in front of Louis’ face. “Focus up.”

Louis looks over at him dazedly. “What?”

“You’ve been staring at that bird for five minutes,” Harry says. “What are you doing, analyzing her blood stream patterns?”

The wires in Louis’ cheeks heat up and he ducks his head. “I wasn’t staring,” he mumbles.

Harry laughs. “Yes, you were!” he says. He tilts his head forward and leans in like he’s telling a secret. “God, do you fancy her?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re actually blushing.”

“Shut up,” says Louis, and he punches Harry’s arm. They both dissolve into laughter again. The student librarian shushes them. Louis snorts again, and herds Harry up and out to get lunch.

They don’t actually have to eat, obviously, but they can taste, and it would’ve been a bit weird if they were the only Academy students who never went out for a burger. Does make it a bit easier on the grocery budget, though. Nick always gives them funny looks when they tell him what they’ve eaten, but he also looks pleased, so. They keep eating.

“I’ve been thinking,” Harry says around a mouthful of burger. “When we graduate we should try to get on the same ship."

“Agreed,” Louis says. Graduation is just around the corner, and though they’ve never said it out loud before, he’d really like to serve with Harry. He wonders how much pull Nick can have over that.

“Evals are soon,” Harry says, and Louis nods.

“You worried?” he asks.

“Nope.”

“Me neither.”

“Good.”

Harry’s in an extra lab class that afternoon, because he thinks it’ll look good on his CV, so Louis goes home and watches football until he hears the door click open. “You missed a great match!” he calls without looking up. When Harry doesn’t respond immediately, he glances over the back of the couch. “Haz?”

Harry drops his bag from his shoulder and goes straight to the couch, where he curls up so he’s practically on Louis’ lap. He ducks his head immediately, but Louis still gets a glance of his eyes before he does, and they’re red and watery.

Louis’ chest feels like it’s breaking a little bit as he pulls Harry into his arms. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, threading his fingers through Harry’s hair.

Harry snuffles. “One of my ankle screws came loose. It was just kids being stupid,” he says. It’s muffled by Louis’ t-shirt. “It doesn’t matter.”

Louis nods and doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know exactly what they said to Harry, but he’s sure he can imagine it – he’s been on the receiving end enough times. Fake, freak, robot. Kids being stupid, as Harry says, because they think ’droids are weird and different and can’t feel anything anyway. Whatever. Louis tightens his arm around Harry and leans his cheek against his head. “You’re perfect,” he says, quietly, but Harry’s already shutting down to go to sleep. Louis watches the TV with the sound off until he feels himself shutting down, too.

Louis does not, on principle, wake up early. He is a college student and he _likes_ sleeping, even if he doesn’t need it. Unfortunately, Harry likes getting up early, so when he wakes up the next morning and untangles himself from Louis on the couch, Louis grumbles and mutters and says he’s seeing a side of the morning he’d really rather not ever see.

“If you’re going to serve in space you’ll have to learn to get up when you need to,” Harry says, unwinding a charging cable from his backpack.

“I do wake up when I need to,” Louis fires back. “I don’t need to be up now.”

“And you call yourself an android,” Harry says, scoffing, and while his back is turned Louis takes the opportunity to tackle him to the ground. “Oi! Watch the ankle!”

They go to Nick’s later, when they’re out of classes. Harry sits on the worktop in his lab while Nick looks at his ankle.

“Evals are coming up,” Nick says as he twists on Harry’s ankle screw. “You ready for them?”

“Obviously,” says Louis. He picks up a memory stick. “What’s on this?”

“Probably porn,” Harry says. Nick pinches him. “Ow!”

Louis giggles. “Can I look at it?”

“No,” says Nick. “I want to talk about evals.”

“We’re going to be fine,” Louis says. “’Droids always serve on ships. Everyone loves us.”

“Not everyone,” Harry mutters.

“We don’t talk about them,” Louis says sternly.

Nick pulls the skin of Harry’s ankle back over the screw and pats it lightly as it knits itself back together. “You can’t just assume you’re going to do well,” he says. “I mean, I don’t doubt you will, but being ’droids doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get the positions you want. You’re still students.”

Harry rolls his ankle around a bit. “Do you think you can get us put on the same ship?” he asks.

Nick rolls his eyes. “Have you even been listening to me?”

“We’ll be fine, Grimmy,” says Louis, helping Harry down off the counter where he’s perched. “Pride of the royal navy and all that?”

Nick tries to roll his eyes again, but he’s grinning. “Yeah, whatever,” he says, waving them off. Harry giggles and Louis pinches his nipple, and they both end up sort of stumbling out of the lab together.

That evening Louis goes out with Harry and a few friends from school across town at a club Harry’d found. Louis gets the girl from the library to dance with him, and politely declines when she offers to take him home, but he doesn’t get her name. He’s an android, not a saint. Harry smirks at him when he comes back to the table.

“Shut up,” Louis says before Harry can make any jokes.

Harry looks offended. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You were thinking it. I can hear your circuits running.”

“Whatever,” Harry says dismissively. The music is winding down, and even though Louis could probably stand to stay another hour or two, Harry’s drooping a little bit. He goes to the bar to pay their tab and then loops an arm under Harry’s.

 “You’ve got to stop forgetting to charge before we go out,” Louis giggles to Harry when they’re outside. Harry’s hanging off of Louis just to be difficult. “You’re bigger than I am.”

“Yes, but you’re older and therefore more responsible,” Harry returns. Louis sighs and pushes into the tube station. There’s a tired-looking man on their train with a sleeping baby held against his chest, and Louis catches Harry looking at them almost wistfully.

“I wonder what it’s like,” Harry says quietly.

Louis leans his head down, not that he needs to. “What what’s like?”

“Being young,” Harry says.

 

 

*

 

Evals go wonderfully. Louis’ grades still aren’t as good as Harry’s, but they’re good enough, and they both get recommended for duty on board one of the bigger starships. They’re not assigned yet, but Harry is grinning from ear to ear when he gets home from his and picks Louis up and swings him around a bit. Louis laughs and digs his fingers into Harry’s sides, where he knows his neuron endings are sensitive, and Harry nearly drops him, and then they both fall to the floor.

“I knew we’d get it,” Harry says, giggling. He’s got a leg still hooked over one of Louis’ and he props himself up on one elbow.

Louis giggles again, and then his mobile rings. “Nick!” he yells into it. “We both got recommended!”

“Congratulations,” Nick says, though he doesn’t sound very excited. “Err, listen, though, you’ve got more evals.”

“What, the special butterfly android ones?” Harry says. “As long as we don’t break down in the middle of them we’re good to go, right?”

“In theory,” says Nick. “But you’re sort of different, you know.”

“So we took a little longer to get here. No biggie,” Louis says. He rolls over on his stomach, away from Harry. Harry flops on his back.

“I’m just warning you,” says Nick.

Louis laughs. “Should we be worried?”

“I mean - ” Nick says. “It’s just – you are very different. I don’t know. I’m nervous. I shouldn’t make you nervous, too.”

Harry crawls over to put his ear next to Louis’. “But why wouldn’t they like us?”

“I’m sure they will,” Nick says hastily. “Just be on time, they’re tomorrow, okay?”

Louis laughs. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Louis hangs up and drops his face on the floor. “We’re going to space,” he says. He can’t quite believe it.

 

*

 

They always show up places on time, thanks very much, Nick, and they’re looking particularly fresh and charged when they get off the bus at Nick’s the next day. Louis grabs Harry’s hand and squeezes, and Harry squeezes back, and they go in together.

The android evaluators look like a pleasant, although stern, bunch. There’s three of them, nodding and shaking hands with Harry and Louis as they come in. Nick introduces everyone – the tallest one, taller than Nick, is called Greg. Louis thinks he has a nice face, especially when he smiles at Louis when he says hello. Nick goes on talking about the ’droids’ different specifications for a while, and has Louis and Harry show themselves off a bit. Louis’ aware that it’s probably the kind of thing that would be embarrassing if he was human, but he likes the way Nick smiles and says he’s proud of them when they’ve reached the end. He pulls Harry into a headlock, which makes Nick frown a little, but he still looks a little very fond.

“You’ve got the reports from the Academy’s android specialists there,” Nick says, pointing at their clipboards. One of the evaluators nods.

“Yes, we’ve looked at them,” she says. Her name is Fiona, according to the Fleet ID badge at her hip, and she tucks her dark hair behind her ear and looks up at Harry and Louis. “You seem to have done very well at the Academy.”

“Thank you,” they both say at the same time. Harry giggles.

The third evaluator – a pointy-nosed, mousey looking man, says, “So well, in fact, that we’re a little concerned.”

“Concerned?” Louis says. “That doesn’t really make sense.” Harry’s still leaning on him, and he giggles a bit.

“We have a certain type of android that serves aboard our starships,” Fiona says. “Dedicated, controlled, focused.”

“You’ll see that that’s in their school reports,” Nick says.

 She smiles thinly at him. “Yes. I do see that.” She looks up at the boys. “We’d like to discuss this with Dr. Grimshaw, if you don’t mind.”

Harry sits up. He’s taller than her when he does. “Why can’t we be here?”

“It’s fine, I’m sure,” Nick says quickly. “I just got the new FIFA, if you want.”

“Fantastic!” Louis says, and he jumps up and drags Harry out of the room with him. If he’s careful he can hack into the game and Nick will never know.

Later, Nick and the evaluators walk through the living room on their way up from the lab, and Nick makes Louis and Harry say goodbye to them as the others leave. Greg sort of looks at them pityingly, which. Whatever. Nick won’t quite meet Louis’ eyes when he walks past him into the living room.

“So, err. I’ve had a chat with them,” Nick says, lowering himself onto the couch.

“We noticed,” Harry says. “What was that all about?”

“Probably giving you some kind of award for science,” Louis says, bouncing down next to him. “Right?”

“Not exactly,” Nick says, and takes a breath like he’s going to speak again, but then doesn’t.

“And?” Harry prompts after a minute.

Nick blows out a breath. “And you’re not serving on a ship.”

Harry blinks at him. Louis frowns, then laughs, and says, “Are you trying to teach us how to joke, Nick, because we already got that down.”

Harry tugs on his sleeve. Nick shakes his head.

“Oh,” Louis says, much quieter.

“Is there something wrong with us?” Harry asks.

Louis feels like he’s been hit in the chest.

“No, no, no,” Nick says, reaching out and cradling Harry's face in his hands. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

“Then why can’t we go to space?” Louis says.

“You’re. They – fuck,” Nick says, and looks at Louis sadly. “They think you’re too developed. You’re too like humans and you’ve got too many independent emotions and they don’t think anybody would want to serve with you.”

There’s a pause. Then, “That’s ridiculous,” says Louis loudly. “We’re too like humans so we can’t serve with humans?”

“Apparently.”

Harry is staring at the carpet. His eyes look watery. Louis thinks he ought to hold him, but all he really wants to do is crawl up inside his own chest cavity.

“So do we get to do anything?” Louis says, loudly again, compensating for how small he feels.

“They want to send you off to some remote planet,” Nick says, rubbing at his eyes. “Work in a field station over there.”

“But I wanted to work on a starship!” Louis exclaims. “That’s not fair!”

“I’m so sorry,” Nick offers.

Louis brushes it off and stands. “You’re not really sorry for us,” he says. “You’re just sorry your science experiment didn’t work.”

“Louis,” Harry says, shocked.

“They’re right, though,” Louis says, ignoring him. “Nobody wants a _computer_ that might be more of a person than them.”

“ _Louis_ ,” Nick says, standing. “You’re not being fair.”

Louis looks at Nick, and then at Harry, who’s staring at him sadly, and shakes his head. He takes Harry’s hand and pulls him out of the flat.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Harry disappears for a long time when they get home, and Louis doesn’t really go looking. Louis sits down and turns on the telly, can’t find anything good, considers putting on his shoes to go get a beer and then remembers that he can’t get drunk, and ends up staring at Harry’s door with one shoe on. He pushes on it gently and goes in.

Harry’s lying on his bed and flipping a memory drive between his fingers. He doesn’t look over when Louis lies down on his side next to him.

“I just wanted to go into space,” Harry whispers. “Why can’t I?”

“It’s not your fault, Hazza,” Louis whispers back. He’s staring at the spinning memory drive.

“Do you – ” Harry chokes a bit, and wipes his nose. “Do you think Nick would shut me down, if I wanted?”

Louis blinks at him through the darkness. “You don’t need Nick to do that.”

“No, I mean, like, permanently.”

Louis locks up for a second, and then pushes up on one elbow over Harry. “You don’t want that,” he says.

Harry shrugs. “I’m just a computer. It probably doesn’t hurt.”

“You don’t want that,” Louis says, more firmly.

Harry looks up to meet his eyes. “I don’t matter any more,” he says, faintly.

Some wire in Louis’ head actually short circuits and it _hurts_. “You do matter,” he says, roughly. “You matter so much, and you’re not just a computer, because you’re Hazza, and you’re mine, and it doesn’t matter what they say because I think you’re the best person I’ve ever known and I’d be honored to serve with you and – ”

Harry tosses the memory drive aside and then throws his arms around Louis and drags him down on top of him, burying his face in Louis’ neck. Louis can feel Harry’s forehead against his false pulse, and hear the quiet sobbing noises he’s making under his ear.

“It’s not fair,” Harry says, after they’ve been laying there for exactly thirty five minutes.

“No, it isn’t,” Louis agrees.

“I think I love you,” Harry says, hesitating. “I mean. I think I feel that.”

Louis pushes his own face into Harry’s shoulder. “I think I can feel that, too,” he says, and then they’re quiet for the rest of the night.

 

 

*

 

It’s a quiet and uneventful trip to the outpost. The last week of the term was all sort of blur to Louis; he hadn’t paid attention to much, and when he had it just made his wiring overheat. He and Harry went up to Nick’s the day after the evals and they’d all hugged each other and said “I’m sorry” too many times to count, and Nick had shown them the new military IDs he’d been given for them.

“They don’t want you being Grimshaws anymore, apparently,” he’d said.

“Can we keep Grimshaw as a middle name?” Harry had asked, and Nick beamed and added it back in.

They get their assignments emailed over. Louis glances at it and then files it away under Things We Don’t Dwell On, but Harry makes sure to write down where their transport is picking them up. Louis manages to steal Harry a window seat and he spends the whole time gazing out at the stars. From the space station it’s onto a smaller transport to the farthest military space port on Gamma Taurus I, and then onto a tiny, privately owned ship to get out to Gamma Taurus IV – their home for the foreseeable future. It’s all very precise and orderly, like it was at the Academy, but it’s also all very new. Louis stands closer to Harry than is strictly necessary.

Harry stares stolidly to the front as he shoulders his duffle bag and climbs aboard their charter, which is inexplicably called the Craic, and Louis nods briefly to the blonde guy he assumes is the captain.

“Are you – err.” The captain glances at a pad screen. “Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles?”

Louis nods again and holds out his ID.

The captain laughs. “Oh, I believe you,” he says. “Dunno who in their right mind would steal aboard this ship.” And he disappears into the flight deck.

They finally get to the port on GT4, as Captain Horan – that’s the captain’s name, Louis read it on a plaque in the cabin – refers to it, though it’s not so much a real port as an old helipad with a little building off to one side. Captain Horan is one of the happiest people Louis has ever observed and he keeps shouting back to them from the cabin to point out constellations that Louis is pretty sure aren’t actually called what he calls them, but it keeps this wide-eyed expression on Harry’s face, anyway, and Louis likes it. He helps them with their bags as they get off. The planet is hot, dry, and sunny. It’ll probably be bad for Louis’ hair.

“You know where you’re goin’?” Captain Horan asks them.

“Outpost Five,” Louis says. "There’s supposed to be someone to meet us.”

“Liam or Zayn, then,” Horan says. “They’re good mates. I run the only charter to and from GT4,” he continues when Louis raises his eyebrow. “And there’s not a lot of people needs comin’ and goin’ out here, so I know most of them.” Harry nods, and then someone’s shouting at them from the little ramshackle building, and Horan says, “right on time, then,” and they head over.

The man who runs out to meet them is grinning widely as he hugs Horan and claps him on the back. He turns to Louis and holds out his hand, and Louis takes it automatically.

“I’m Liam,” the guy says. “I’m an engineer at Outpost Five. You’re the new guys, right?”

“We’re the new androids,” Harry says, deliberately accenting the last word and jutting his chin out towards Liam. Louis doesn’t say anything.

Liam just smiles more, looking at Harry. “Harry and Louis, right? We’ll get you set up, come on.” He waves to Horan and gestures for the ’droids to follow him as he turns around and walks around the building. “I don’t know how much they’ve told you. It’s pretty quiet around here. We mostly do upkeep of the radio towers and sometimes they let us build new gadgets.” They’ve come up next to a run-down looking Jeep and he waves to it. “We’re not exactly fancy around here,” he says, apologetically. “I imagine you’re used to, like, flying cars. Or something.”

“We lived in London,” Louis says. He doesn’t mind the Jeep. He bumps Harry with his hip and climbs into the passenger seat, leaving Harry to climb into the back.

“That where you were developed?” Liam asks.

“Yes. But we attended the Academy, too.”

Liam glances across his shoulder at Louis as he climbs in the driver’s seat. “I didn’t know ’droids could do that,” he says, a little impressed. “Sounds like a cool place.”

Louis shrugs and fiddles with the zipper on his bag as the car starts.

“Did you attend the Academy?” Harry asks.

Liam laughs. “Oh, no. I, uh, tried to get in. Twice. Just wasn’t good enough.” He rolls his shoulders. “So I went to uni anyway and then got a job out here.”

“Sounds like fun,” says Harry, and Liam furrows his eyebrows a bit and looks at him in the rearview mirror.

Outpost Five is, in actual fact, the farthest from civilization that Harry and Louis have ever been. Nick took them camping one time after their first term at school, but even that was a twenty-two minute drive to the nearest ASDA. Liam drives for two hours and eleven minutes without seeing anything before the towers of the outpost even rise up on the horizon. Then it’s another fifteen minutes to pull up to a round chrome building that Louis knows is the outpost from the assignment email he tried to forget about.

“So, um,” Liam says, leading them down a dark hallway – not that it matters, Louis’ eyes adjusted automatically – “we’ve got a couple of extra rooms right here, so you can each claim one, I guess. You’re probably tired. Or, well, maybe you’re not.” He laughs, eyes trained on Harry. “I’m not really sure how that works, honestly.”

Louis frowns at him.

“Thanks so much,” Harry says, and he ducks into one of the doorways. He tugs on Louis’ shirt.

“Yes, thank you,” Louis says, following, and shuts the door, ignoring Liam’s confused face. Harry sits on the bed and looks up at Louis expectantly.

“I don’t like it here,” Louis says, throwing his duffle on the bed next to Harry.

“Liam is nice," Harry says. “Don’t you think he’s nice?”

Louis shrugs noncommittally and drops his duffle on the bed next to Harry. “He’s nice,” he says, “but he’s, like. Isn’t he kind of weird?”

Harry traces a circle on his thigh with his thumb as Louis starts to unpack his bag. “He doesn’t think we’re weird,” Harry says, quietly.

Louis stops what he’s doing and turns to pinch Harry’s cheek. “That’s because you haven’t talked much yet,” he says, grinning and getting up close so Harry’s eyes cross trying to see him. Harry scrunches up his face, laughs and bats at Louis’ hands ineffectively.  

“He’s not too bad,” Harry says, twisting and crawling up the bed away from Louis’ grip. “And there’s another one here, too.”

Louis concedes as much and turns to finish unpacking.

 

 

*

 

Harry nudges at Louis’ side. They've been on GT4 for a week and beyond Liam's original introduction, Louis still doesn't really have a grasp on what the outpost is even here for. Zayn, the other scientist at the outpost, isn’t very good at explaining himself, and after a brief explanation of the towers this morning, he’d sent the ’droids out to figure out what’s gone wrong with the signal by themselves. It could be worse work, Louis thinks: if there’s anything he and Harry are good at, it’s figuring things out for themselves. Which is sort of what got them here in the first place. In the desert. On Gamma Taurus IV. Away from Nick.

Harry nudges him again.

“What?” Louis says.

“You okay?”

Louis picks up a loose end of a wire. “I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with this tower,” he says. He runs the tip of his finger across the end of the wire and registers a tiny shock. “I think the problem is inside where they’re getting the signal.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too,” Harry says. He chews on his bottom lip. “Should we go in then?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Louis reaches over and pulls the beanie Harry’s wearing off his head. He likes the way the sun out here makes Harry’s eyes look brighter green. Harry makes a noise of protest. Louis puts it on himself, pulling his hair off of his forehead, and turns to Harry with a grin. “How do I look?”

“Like a douche,” Harry says, and makes to take it back, but Louis dodges him and ducks.

“Oi!” Zayn calls from below them, on the ground. “You fix it yet?”

Louis turns his head to look at Zayn and Harry takes the opportunity to steal his beanie back. “There’s no problem up here, we think it’s inside,” Harry says.

“Right,” says Zayn. He’s tan and dark-haired dark-eyed and really very pretty, Louis thinks. Zayns shifts like he’s going to leave, but instead he tilts his head and considers them.

Louis smacks Harry’s hand and tries to take the beanie back. “You need anything else?” he asks, when he notices that Zayn’s still there.

Zayn shrugs and pulls an electronic cigarette out of his pocket. “Just, like. You’re very good at being human.”

Louis blinks at him. Harry ducks his head.  “Well, so’re you,” Louis says, sharply.

Zayn squint up at him. He takes a drag on his cigarette and furrows his eyebrows for a second, then laughs softly. “What gave it away?” he asks.

Harry makes himself busy with wrapping wires with his back to Zayn while Louis climbs down the tower steps.

“You don’t exactly look like a human, mate,” Louis says, frowning. “Big eyes.”

Zayn blinks. Harry has climbed down and Louis moves back and behind him, puts his hand on Harry’s lower back and steers him around Zayn and back to the outpost.

“He didn’t mean anything,” Louis says, when they’re out of Zayn’s hearing range.

Harry pushes open the door to the outpost. “I don’t think people like knowing they’re different,” he says slowly. “It makes it awkward.”

“You don’t even know what awkward is,” Louis counters, shoving Harry with his shoulder a little. They turn a corner and jump a little when they run into Liam. He smiles at them.

“Hey!” he says. “Did you figure it out?”

“We were just going to look again inside,” Harry says. Louis nods silently. Yesterday morning, when they’d made their way into the kitchen, Liam had offered Louis tea and started asking him questions about _what he liked to do_ and _how was his life with Nick_ and all kinds of personal questions Louis had never bothered to come up with answers for because no one else had ever asked once they knew he wasn’t real. “I play football,” he’d stuttered, because it was the only thing he could think of. Liam had grinned, and said, “We’ve got an old ball somewhere, we should all play sometime,” and clapped Louis on the shoulder. Louis rolls his shoulder a little at the memory.

Louis thumbs absently at the serial number tattoo under Harry’s t-shirt while Harry and Liam talk. Liam says something to them that makes Harry laugh. Louis nods. Liam smiles and laughs and keeps walking down the hall, glancing at Louis’ hand on Harry’s back as he moves past. Louis pretends he doesn’t notice.

 

*

 

Liam stops by the receiving center late one day about a week later and taps on the doorframe to get Louis’ attention. He’s dusty and dirty and even his close-cropped hair looks mussed where it’s longer on the top. He grins at Louis. “Dinner’s in a few,” he says, glancing around the room. “Where’s Harry?”

“Re-programming your radar.” Louis wrenches on a bolt under a desk.

“Oh, right,” Liam says, and lingers in the doorway.

“Do you need me for something?” Louis asks. Liam sort of outranks him, even though he isn’t officially military. Protocol.

“No, no,” Liam says, and Louis turns back to the stuck bolt. “Hey, why do you and Harry look different?” Liam asks suddenly.

Louis squints at him over his shoulder. “Why do you and Zayn look different?” he asks.

Liam laughs. “Because we’re different people.”

“There you are then.”

“But,” Liam says, stepping into the room, “usually androids from one developer end up looking like each other, you know? And you said Dr. Grimshaw developed you two at the same time.”

The bolt still isn’t moving. “Nick didn’t want us to be like other androids,” says Louis with a grimace.

“He did well, then,” Liam says.

Louis snorts and sits back on his heels. “Yeah, and look where it got us.”

“What's that?”

“Why do you treat us like humans?” Louis asks, standing up abruptly. Liam’s a lot closer than he had sensed, but he doesn’t move back.

Liam looks at him with a confused expression. “Why shouldn’t I?” he says.

Louis ducks away; he has to look up to see Liam eye-to-eye this close and it makes him feel small and fidgety. “Just like you treat Zayn like a human,” he says, walking around Liam.

Liam turns and follows him out of the room. “I treat Zayn like a person,” he says to Louis’ back. “Not like a human. I mean, because he’s not, actually, a human, but, you know. So I guess that’s how I treat you. Like a person.” He pauses to take a breath. “Zayn doesn’t really tell people he’s a Malick. How’d you know?”

“I analyzed his blood type with my laser eyes.”

“You – ” Liam says, startled.

 Louis rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t look like a human, Liam, his eyes are too big.”

“Oh.” They’re at the kitchen now, and they both try to go through the door at the same time. Their shoulders bump and Liam steps back, tripping a little bit, and mutters a “sorry, sorry, you go ahead.”

“It’s okay, I’m not hungry,” Louis says, instead of going in, and leaves down the hallway into his room.

Harry looks up at him reproachfully when he gets there. “You’re supposed to be at dinner.”

Louis makes a face and sits at his desk. “So are you,” he says, cheerfully.

“I don’t want dinner,” says Harry. He gets up and drapes his arms across Louis’ shoulders. “Can we call Nick? Please?”

 

 

*

 

Louis spins his swivel chair in the radio booth. Sighs and blows his fringe out of his face. Looks up at the control panel, memorizes the blinking patterns, and sighs again. His comm buzzes with a message from Harry.

_i’m bored out of my brain chip_

_don’t you have a job?_ Louis sends back.

_whatever_

Louis smiles at the screen and wipes at a smudge with his thumb. He’s turning to the back wall and deciding how many wires he can unplug before an alarm goes off when Harry opens the door to the radio booth and shuffles in.

“This place is tiny,” Harry complains immediately. Louis cackles, but Harry ignores him and walks over to the chair and onto Louis’ lap.

“Oi,” Louis says, “this is a one-man job.” But he curls his hand around Harry’s hip and pulls him in closer, anyway.

“D’you think we have a purpose?” Harry asks after a few minutes of silence and Louis rocking them on the swivel chair.

Louis pushes off with his foot and spins the chair around. “Yeah, of course.”

"Liam says every person has a purpose,” Harry says. He tucks his feet up so they don’t hit the controls as they go around. “But that’s only _people_ people.”

“Maybe your purpose in life is to give me headaches,” Louis says. "When have you been talking to Liam?"

Harry chews on the side of his thumbnail. "We worked on the radar together yesterday." When Louis doesn't say anything, Harry looks up at him through his eyelashes. "Liam's nice," he says. "I don’t think he minds that we’re. You know." He grabs at Louis' free hand and laces their fingers together, swinging them a bit and gazing apologetically up at him. Harry’s hand engulfs Louis’. One time he’d asked Nick why he made him so small and Harry so big – Nick had grinned and said, “because that makes you interesting, darling.”

“Why wouldn’t you have a purpose?” Louis asks quietly, propping his chin on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry shifts around until he’s curled up with his head on Louis’ shoulder. His feet hang over the armrest. “Because I’m not doing anything.”

“Excuse you,” Louis says, “you’re handling the very, very important upkeep of the radar towers on Gamma Taurus IV.” He pauses, for a laugh, but Harry doesn’t say anything. Louis cranes his neck to look down at him. “Haz?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” says Harry, very quietly. “I was supposed to be out there.” He waves vaguely to the ceiling. Louis brushes his hand down Harry’s back and pushes off the controls with his foot again.

Zayn comes in to find them an hour or so later. He blinks a few times and then nods to Harry and tells him the radar’s acting up again. Harry presses his lips into a thin line and goes without saying anything.

“Did someone teach you to hold each other like that?” Zayn asks as Harry passes by.

Louis raises both eyebrows. “No,” he says. “It just feels nice.”

“Oh,” says Zayn. He and Liam are always saying that.

“We’re not robots.”

“I know,” Zayn says. Louis gives him a look from the corner of his eye before turning back to the controls and Zayn laughs softly. “I can’t read you, Louis,” he says, scuffing the floor with his boot. Louis wants to tell him _you don’t have to,_ but Nick had said “don’t piss anyone off” with a glare in his direction when they left, and well, he’s trying his best.

"Harry doesn't really like it here," Louis says instead.

Zayn nods. "You were supposed to be, like, starship ’droids, yeah?"

"Yeah," Louis says, surprised. “I mean, that was the plan.”

"Sometimes plans just don't work out, though," says Zayn. "I'm sorry Harry doesn't like it. It isn’t all bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got the whole thing written, i'm just finishing the editing – and because i'm impatient i'll probably have the chapters all up within the next week. oopsies. thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

One day, Louis gets in from tuning the last radio tower and Liam is on the hall comm with Niall “don’t call him captain, it’ll go to his head” Horan. Harry is leaning against the wall next to him like he’s listening in. Louis rakes his fingers through his hair to brush the dust out and when he looks back up, Harry’s motioning for him to come closer with one finger. Louis can hear Niall on the other end of the comm, talking so fast and in such a thick brogue that Louis can’t really tell what he’s saying.

Harry leans forward off the wall a bit. “Niall is making a trip out,” he says, quietly. “Do you need anything from off planet?”

“Do you?” Louis asks.

“I already said coolant.”

Louis nods and brushes his hair off his forehead again. The wind does terrible things to it no matter what he does. “I think I’m good.”

Harry nods and looks at Liam, who looks between them and then nods back. He turns back to the comm speaker and says something to Niall, and Harry leans back again, his gaze still fixed on Liam. Louis narrows his eyes, figures that’s the end of that, and goes to wash his hair.

 

*

 

When Niall gets there late the next day, he makes a terrible commotion at the Outpost. Zayn had been relegated to Jeep duties, and  when he and Niall pull up outside, they’re both laughing loudly at something which they won’t share with the others.

Niall’s laugh is a warm, full-bodied cackle and Louis likes it immediately. Niall demands beer as soon as he’s inside, and when Liam admits they haven’t got any, he makes a fuss. Eventually, though, he reveals that he brought his own along. Zayn and Harry cheer – Liam makes a concerned face, but it ends up looking like he’s just trying not to laugh.

Much later – when the other three are a drunk and giggling mess on the couch watching some film play on the holoscreen –  Harry and Louis are in the kitchen. Harry presses himself against Louis’ back where he’s standing at the counter. Louis reaches up and tugs on a handful of Harry’s curls and hears him sigh softly.

“You’re missing the movie,” Harry says, but he leans his weight more onto Louis as he does.

“Seen it before,” Louis says, pressing his hands against the counter to lean back. Harry leans forward again, and Louis keeps leaning back, and Harry giggles and plants his hands against the counter.

Louis slumps forward a bit under the weight, then turns so he’s facing Harry and bracketed against the counter by his arms. “You alright, then?” he says, looking up.

Harry shrugs and doesn’t look away. “Yeah, ‘m alright.”

Louis smiles and leans one elbow on the counter behind him, twisting his other fingers into the hem of Harry’s shirt. “I heard you’ve got a new project.”

“Oh, that,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose. “Complete overhaul of the radar. Zayn’s idea. Well. Mine, too, but I didn’t actually want to do it.”

Louis laughs and Harry huffs and grins. “I’m sure it’ll be loads of fun,” Louis says.

“Maybe,” Harry says. He shifts his weight so his thighs press closer into Louis’.

Louis tilts his head at the movement. “Hazza?” he says, and then Harry ducks his head and kisses him, presses his dry lips solidly against Louis’ for just long enough for Louis to think about kissing back, and then he pulls away. He looks at Louis nervously.

“What was that for?” Louis asks, quietly.

Harry’s eyes dart to the floor. “Wanted to see what it was like,” he mumbles.

Louis’ fingers haven’t left his shirt. “It was nice,” he says, and when Harry looks up at him warily he smiles. “Really. I mean, there’s always room for improvement, but – ”

“Oh, piss off,” Harry says, grinning. But he doesn’t move away and Louis grins and pokes at his dimple.

“Oh!” Niall suddenly says from the doorway. “Sorry about that.”

Louis pushes off from the counter and pushes Harry with him. “No worries, mate,” he says. “Weren’t interrupting anything.”

“Oh, great,” Niall says, and Louis isn’t sure if he’s so unconcerned just because, or just because he’s drunk. Either way, he’ll take it.

Harry kisses Louis again the next day, when Niall is gone and everyone else has wandered into their quarters and Harry is slowly shutting down against Louis’ side on the couch. He breathes out against Louis’ cheek afterward and tucks his head into Louis’ neck. Louis curls his arm around him tighter.

 

*

 

Louis’ comm buzzing wakes him up in the morning. It surprises him; their mobile comms are spotty out here, so usually people just call through the comm in the hall. Harry’s gone and someone is moving around in the kitchen, but the couch is comfortable, so Louis just slides lower as he pulls his comm out of his pocket.

“Hey, love,” Nick says when he answers.

Louis grins. “Hi,” he says, curling his legs into his chest. “What’s up?”

“Is Harry there?” Nick asks.

“No. Do you want me to get him?”

“No, no,” Nick says. Louis hears him moving around. “How’re you doing? How’re you getting along with everyone?”

“Um, fine,” Louis says. They send Nick emails all the time. He knows how they’re getting along.

“How’s Liam?”

Louis frowns and rubs at his eyes. “Fine, I guess?”

“Yeah?,” Nick says. “Do you like him?”

Louis doesn’t really know why they’re having this conversation. “He’s fine.”

Nick doesn’t say anything for a moment and Louis thinks he hears him typing. “I just know,” he says, eventually, “I know that Harry likes him a lot, so I was wondering how you were getting along.”

“I’m not – it’s not that I don’t like him.”

Nick is silent again, and Louis rubs at his eyes again.

“Just be careful, yeah?” Nick says after a while. Louis hums in response. He hangs up and doesn’t really feel like going to work.

 

 

*

 

The radar overhaul takes longer than Harry and Zayn projected, so Louis and Liam get lots of indoor duties while the others are off in the field. Which is nice, but it also means there’s a few weeks where he hardly sees Harry – Harry comes stumbling back into base at dinner time covered in dust and it takes all his energy to get through a shower and into bed even without having a conversation. Louis watches him carefully every morning, looking for signs that Harry’s too tired or unhappy, but he still smiles when he and Zayn head out the door, so it’s probably safe.

Louis does get sent out to the airstrip one day to meet Niall for a shipment of rations. It’s nice to drive the Jeep and get out in the sun, but he had to leave early that morning and when he comes back he’s expecting Harry to be there at dinner and he’s not. Zayn looks up from the stove.

“Where’s Hazza?” Louis asks.

Zayn points down the hallway with his spatula. “Down at the shower. Liam’s with him.”

Louis jolts. “Why?” he blurts out, but Zayn just shrugs.

“Hey, Lou,” Liam says, coming into the kitchen and smiling. “Did you just get back?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, guardedly. He feels himself frowning but he doesn’t try to change his expression. “How was your day?”

“Oh, fine,” says Liam. “Got all that filing done in the back room, you know, where it was piling up.”

“Uh huh,” Louis says, not really listening. “Is Harry back there?”

Liam doesn’t seem to mind the change of subject. “Yeah, but he’s pretty tired.”

Louis doesn’t give a damn if Liam thinks Harry is tired. “Oh,” he says. He wants to run down the hallway to Harry’s room, but he just clenches his hands into fists and stays where he is. Liam walks past him to the counter, next to Zayn.

“Hi,” Harry drawls a second later, walking into the kitchen. He leans over when he gets closer and kisses Louis. Louis leans in and kisses back harder.

“You were hanging out with Liam?” Louis asks before Harry has even moved away.

Harry looks at him a little strangely, biting his lips together, and turns to sit down. “Yeah, we were talking.”

“In the shower?” says Louis.

“No,” Harry says, laughing. “Why would we do that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis says. He walks up behind Harry’s chair and leans his chin on his shoulder. “D’you think you’re almost done with the radar?”

Harry smiles and he tells Louis about the progress they’ve been making.

 

 

*

 

It’s not like Louis isn’t trying to like Liam. It’s close quarters at the outpost and Liam is just so _earnest_ and _careful_ and Louis just _isn’t._ Louis feels like he’s an exposed wire every time Liam gets too close, like Liam’s going to shock him, even though it’s more likely to be the other way around. He knows, logically, that Liam is sweet as far as humans go, and friendly, and should be likeable, but Louis feels himself buzzing every time Harry makes a dumb joke and Liam smiles a crinkly-eyed smile and Harry grins back at Liam delightedly.

Louis especially doesn’t like it when Liam gets a call one day about two officers needed to go make a report at the spaceport on GT1 and Harry immediately says he’ll go with Liam.

“Are you sure they need two of you?” Louis asks when Liam brings it up again, the night before they’re supposed to go out. He stares down at his plate and pokes at the unidentifiable lump that passes for dinner tonight.

On his right, Liam hums around his mouthful of food. “Yep. They just like to check up on us sometimes,” he says.

“And I want to go,” Harry puts in.

Louis looks up to see Harry smiling guilelessly across the table at Liam. “There’s work for you here,” Louis says, a little petulant, maybe.

Harry shrugs. “There’s always work,” he says.

“We can get you some time off soon,” Liam says to Louis.

Louis frowns. He doesn’t want time off. He just wants Harry here, with him, all the time. And possibly Liam in a black hole.

“And it’s just protocol to bring two people,” Liam says.

“What, they don’t trust just you?” Louis says. “Need an Academy graduate?”

Liam frowns over at Louis. “I didn’t ask,” he says shortly.

“Lou,” Harry says quietly.

Louis drops his gaze and turns back to his dinner. Liam sighs.

Liam and Harry go off-planet together, and Niall brings in a shipment of fresh food with him when he gets them. Zayn makes this fantastic Malick dish for dinner that night and Louis even helps wash dishes in appreciation. Harry and Liam are off doing official things together and it’s fine. Mostly.

“So you and Harry,” Zayn says, when they’re spread out on the couch after dinner, and Louis tenses up. He doesn’t like conversations that start with _so you and your android friend_. They just don’t go well, generally.

“So, me and Harry,” he says in reply.

Zayn laughs. “You’re always so, I dunno. Protective of each other,” he says. “I was just wondering if that was, like, just you, or if all ’droids are like that.”

Louis’ shoulders relax a little. He’s become a little more open with Zayn recently. Zayn looks at him with a gentle curiosity instead of the scrutinizing eye he’d been used to on earth. “I think it’s just us,” Louis says, picking at his toenail. They don’t grow. They’re just sort of there, being…toenails.

Zayn hums. “Back on my planet,” he says, “they think a lot of loyalty like that.” It reminds Louis that he’s never asked Zayn about his planet. He didn’t know how. Zayn must see something in his face because he laughs softly again. “I’ve got a story, too, I’ll have you know,” he teases.

Louis kicks at him across the cushions. “So, tell,” he says. “Don’t leave a man hanging, Zayn.” Zayn grins and waves at him dismissively, but he settles back and looks off a bit into the distance like he’s thinking. Louis chews on his thumb and tries not to fidget.

“When I went to the Academy, it was the first year they’d let Malicks in,” Zayn says after a minute. He fumbles in his pocket for his cigarette and gets it lit while he continues. “And there were, like, three of us who got in, but I’m the only one who graduated.”

“The Academy is pretty hard,” Louis offers.

Zayn smiles a little at the attempt. “My friends were really smart,” he says. “Anyway, they wouldn’t let me on a ship. Morale problems, or something.”

Louis ducks his head and watches his toes dig into the space between the couch cushions. “Yeah, that sounds familiar,” he says.

Zayn breathes in smoke and then breathes it out slowly. “S’okay. Wouldn’t have met Liam and Niall otherwise. Or you,” he adds, with a wink in Louis’ direction.

Louis frowns. He feels indignant on Zayn’s behalf – he’s a great guy, he’s a great scientist, there’s no reason he ought to be stuck out here overhauling radars that scan nothing just because humans still don’t like aliens.

“Hey,” Zayn says, bringing Louis out of his thoughts, “it’s okay, yeah? I’m okay with it.” He smiles and Louis makes himself smile back.

 

 

*

 

“Harry,” Louis calls down the hallway, rubbing the grease on his hands off on his trousers, “Haz, where are you?”

“He’s in here,” Liam calls from down the hallway, and Louis frowns. He follows the voice until he gets to the lounge and stops short when he takes in Harry and Liam curled up on the couch, Harry’s head on Liam’s shoulder and Liam’s arm around Harry’s shoulders.

“Liam,” Louis says carefully.

Harry makes a snuffling noise and sits up to see him. “Hey, Lou,” he says, smiling a tiny bit.

“Harry’s had a bad day,” Liam tells Louis, like he can’t _see that already_.

“I’m fine. How’s the generator?” Harry asks, pushing his hair away from his eyes with both hands.

“The generator’s shit,” Louis says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out so nasty, and he pretends he doesn’t see the frowny glances Harry and Liam give each other.

When Harry is sad, he goes to Louis. It’s just how it always has been and how it always will be, as far as Louis is concerned. Nobody ever questioned it or wondered about it; there’s never been anyone else to go to, anyway. Except for Nick. Nick is a good second, Louis thinks.

“I’m just going to go,” he says, and he turns and leaves.

“Lou, wait,” he hears Harry saying, which Louis knows is really ridiculous of him because Harry’s the one who’s had a horrible day, apparently. He turns into his bedroom but leaves the door open for Harry, who frowns at him before closing the door behind him.

“Lou,” he says, dragging the name out and worrying at his bottom lip, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Louis lies as he leans down to untie his boots. “Just a kind of shit day.” He offers a weak smile.

 Harry frowns harder and sits down to crowd up into his side. “Louis,” he says, nudging the top of his head against Louis’ cheek. “Tell me.” He slides his hands up and down Louis’ sides and under his shirt and Louis has never thought carefully about how Harry’s skin feels sliding against his own but he really, really doesn’t think he should start. He shakes his head.

“I’m just tired,” he says. He slides his hand up Harry’s shoulder and tangles it in his hair. “It’s okay.” He pulls on Harry’s hair and Harry huffs a little and digs his fingers hard into Louis’ sides.

There’s a very heavy pause. Then Harry says, “okay,” slowly, and nudges his nose under Louis’ jaw.

“Just,” Louis says. He turns his head to press his nose into Harry’s temple. He has to close his eyes for a moment – he feels an overwhelming sense of possessiveness for Harry, Harry’s attention, Harry’s touch – whatever he’ll give him. He’s not thinking clearly. “Just don’t leave me, okay?” he says.

“Okay,” says Harry after another pause. His eyes are wide and trusting and sad and Louis leans down to kiss him so he doesn’t have to look at them. Harry melts forward into him, and Louis tries sucking gently his lower lip between his when his mouth falls open. Harry gasps; Louis works his mouth open wider until he can get his tongue past Harry’s teeth. It’s slow and it’s sweet and it’s hot all at once and Louis can feel everywhere Harry is pressed up against him as he tugs him forward onto his lap. Harry goes easily, knees on either side of Louis’ hips, hanging on to his shoulders hard enough to bruise, if that were something Louis were capable of.

They just kiss for a long time, and it’s like all the times before, but it’s also _more_ – like Louis can’t get enough of the way Harry is pliant and hot and open above him. Louis’ hard in his pants, which isn’t a new sensation, but Harry shifts forward, trying to get closer, and when he moves his hips, his bum rocks against Louis’ cock. Louis breaks away with a startled gasp and Harry pulls back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry says, blushing and scooting backward like he’s trying to get away.

Louis tightens his grip on Harry’s hips and holds him where he is. “Stay,” he says into his cheek, right next to his ear, and Harry shudders and slides forward again until their hips line up, cranes his head down and kisses Louis again.

Louis slides his hands under Harry’s thighs and scoots up on the bed, turning them and letting Harry fall back against the mattress. Louis slides up against him, one leg between Harry’s, so Harry’s jeans and Louis’ canvas trousers catch against each other. Harry whines a little bit at the pressure, grips Louis’ shoulders and presses hot, open-mouthed kisses to his jaw. He tugs at the back of Louis’ shirt until Louis pulls back enough to get it off.

“Can we,” Harry asks, trailing his fingertips down Louis’ chest like it’s something he’s never seen before. Louis shivers and nods mutely. Harry breathes out sharply through his nose and pulls Louis back over him, draping his arms over Louis’ shoulders so he can get his tongue in Louis’ mouth. Louis groans and mutters a curse. All of his nerve endings feel like they’re burning and fizzling and Louis’ never, ever felt quite as human as he does now.

Harry is wiggling under him and Louis realizes belatedly that he’s trying to get his own shirt unbuttoned, so he pulls back a little so he can use both hands to get it off of him. He leans down to bite at Harry’s collarbone, mouths along his chest until Harry’s back arches up and he pulls at Louis’ hair. The false pulse under Harry’s skin is jumping erratically and Louis wishes he could leave marks.

“C’mon, Lou,” Harry huffs, as he tugs him up again, clearly done with that, his fingers scrabbling down Louis’ sides again and down his back and then grabbing at the waistband of his trousers, tugging on them and trying to find the zip without letting his mouth get away from Louis’. Louis pulls away anyway, ignoring Harry’s whine of protest, and sits up on his knees. Harry tilts his hips up desperately against nothing, making Louis laugh and grab Harry’s hipbones with both hands, pushing him back down.

“ _Louis_ ,” Harry growls, and Louis leans down and kisses him briefly before sitting back again and undoing the flies on Harry’s jeans and tugging them down and off his ankles along with his boxer briefs, then making quick work of his own. Harry gasps open-mouthed at the cold air against his overheated dick and writhes against the sheets.

“It’s okay,” Louis breathes, even though he thinks he’s assuring himself more than Harry, and slides down and kisses Harry again. He rolls his hips down just a bit, getting used to the feeling of skin against skin, and after a moment Harry gets with the program and rolls his hips up just as Louis grinds down and it’s – it’s good, like Louis didn’t know good could feel. He’s holding himself up with his hands planted on either side of Harry’s head and Harry can’t seem to keep his hands still, sliding up and over his shoulder blades and around his neck and against the base of his spine. The skin on Harry’s neck is hot where Louis bites him as he grinds down, and Harry jerks his hips up desperately at the feeling.

Louis shifts his weight a bit, changing the angle of his movements, and Harry lets out a little noise that turns into a moan against Louis’ neck. His fingers tighten where they’ve wandered into Louis’ hair again and his eyes screw closed, and in a few seconds Louis feels his hips stutter against his a few times before he stills, then falls back, breathing heavily.

“Fuck,” Louis says, inanely. Harry opens his eyes lazily and smiles at him and Louis ruts against him again, feels his stomach contract as he comes, and his arms give out as he collapses onto Harry.

Louis is aware, after a minute, that his mouth is pressed awkwardly against Harry’s shoulder, and Harry is, like a saint, still running his fingers against Louis’ scalp. He pushes up on his forearms and drags his forehead against Harry’s. He closes his eyes and tries to steady his breathing.

“Hi,” Harry says, when Louis finally looks down at him. Harry pushes the fringe off of Louis’ forehead gently and presses a kiss there. Louis wants to wrap him up and hide him away until everybody else is gone and dead. His life span is pretty long. He’ll ask Nick about it. It’s a horrible, selfish thought and Louis is only slightly ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, nosing along Harry’s cheek.

“It’s okay,” says Harry, softly. He smiles and brushes his thumbs along Louis’ cheekbones just under his eyes. Louis doesn’t think he knows what he’s forgiving him for.

 

*

 

Turns out that the generator on Tower 4 is actually blown to shit, so Louis calls Niall and gets him to bring out a new one for him. Liam offers to help him get it going once it get there. Louis blinks at him and says, “that’s okay,” and tries not to feel guilty. He’s got nothing to be guilty about.

“You should come in now,” Harry says, coming into the generator shed. Louis’ been out all day getting the old generator unhooked and the sun is going down. He wipes his greasy hands on his thighs and sits back on his heels. Harry comes up behind him and slides his hands gently through his hair. “You haven’t even got the new one yet.”

“Niall should be here tomorrow,” says Louis. He closes his eyes briefly, then stands up and turns towards Harry. He catches the other ’droid’s hands in his. “D’you wanna help?”

Harry bites at his lower lip. “I told Liam he could schedule me with him inside tomorrow,” he says.

Louis nods shortly and he grips Harry’s hands too hard. “Yeah, okay.”

“I wish you’d get along,” says Harry.

“We get along,” Louis protests.

Harry tilts his head and looks at him with disbelief in his eyes. Louis darts his eyes away. He has nothing to be guilty about.

“Come on in, Lou,” Harry says, tugging at his hands and walking backwards out of the building. He turns around when they’re through the door but he doesn’t let go of Louis’ hand until they’re in his room, and Louis only feels a little smug when Liam stares as they pass through the lounge.

 

 

*

 

Liam announces, one week, that they’ve got to go make a report at the spaceport, so he’s making an executive decision to close the Outpost for a day and they’ll all go off-planet and make a day of it. Zayn high-fives Louis and Harry starts bouncing on his toes.

They’re an odd bunch, Louis thinks, averting his eyes from where Harry is talking to Liam. It’s not like GTI is much more exciting than GT4 – it just has a lot of bars, from what Louis has gathered. But it’s not a desert and that in itself is good enough reason to want to take a break there. Harry keeps bouncing, too, swinging his arms where he’s now holding onto Liam’s hands between them. Louis leaves the room before his wiring overheats.

They all pile into the Jeep after Liam checks the locks on the doors three times – not like anyone is out here to wreak havoc with the radios, or whatever Liam thinks will happen when they’re gone – and Liam drives, and Harry starts humming something and Zayn picks up the tune and before Louis can even figure out what the words are, all three of the others are singing. He sits back in his seat and listens.

Harry jumps out of the Jeep before it comes to a full and complete stop, which terrifies Liam, and Louis cackles.

“Niall!” Harry yells, waving an arm over his head.

Niall waves back from the door of his ship with a grin. “Not you again,” he says when Louis gets closer. Louis sticks his tongue out at him. Because he’s a mature Fleet officer.

Harry’s got Louis’ hand between both of his and he pulls him along up the ramp. “Liam!” he says, suddenly letting go of Louis with one hand and grabbing Liam, “Liam, are we going to that club we went to last time?”

Louis narrows his eyes. Last time was a _work trip_.

Liam grins. “Yeah, of course,” he says, “if the other guys want to.”

“’Course they will,” Harry says. He looks at Louis. “Right?”

“Whatever you say, Haz,” says Louis.

Harry grins widely and squeezes his hand – and probably Liam’s, too, in his other hand, and then says, “It’ll be fun.”

“’Course,” Liam says. He isn’t letting go of Harry.

Louis squints at Liam but his face doesn’t give anything away. “Must be good dancing,” Louis says conversationally. Harry keeps whipping his head around to look at him and Liam and it’s actually a little amusing.

“Good drinks, too,” Liam says. He shifts his weight a little towards Harry. Louis’ not really sure if what he thinks is happening is happening, but he figures better safe than sorry. He slips his hand out of Harry’s only to wrap it around his waist and pull him into his side, and digs his fingers into Harry’s hip structure. It produces the desired effect, which is that Liam finally pries his hand out of Harry’s.

“You’d all better be ready to get under way, because I’m leaving,” Niall shouts from the cockpit. Liam laughs and turns around to sit in one of the window seats. Harry sits in the other window seat, across from him.

There’s business at the spaceport offices first, and then Louis goes to find an android specialist in the Fleet base next door. She’s a nice brunette and she thinks Louis and Harry are fantastic, tells them she’s read about Dr. Grimshaw’s work and she’s really excited that she got to meet them. She also slips Harry her comm number after she checks their wiring, which is a bit unprofessional if you ask Louis.

Niall leads them down this darkened alleyway later that night, when they’ve exhausted all the shopping near the base. It’s crowded with Fleet members and traders and aliens, and Niall goes for the busiest-looking door. Harry nudges Louis’ shoulder when he hesitates; he hasn’t been in a club for what feels like ages and he looks down at himself self-consciously, even though he knows he looks the same as he always has since he woke up in Nick’s lab. He hears Harry laugh at him and then they’re inside and it’s crowded and sweaty and smells like booze and Louis remembers how much he likes clubbing. Zayn and Niall both disappear onto the dance floor after their first drinks and Louis follows, pushing Harry along.

Zayn comes by after a while and laughs at them dancing together. “Come and have another drink,” he says over the music. Harry waves him off, so Louis leaves him there and goes with Zayn. The alien bartender doesn’t spare a second glance at them when they come stumbling over, just points down the bar because Liam is there waving at them.

“Lads. Lad. Android. Lads. Whatever,” Liam’s rambling when they get over to him. He doesn’t look entirely drunk yet, though. “Lads, where’s – ” he squints at them and bobs his head a bit, like he’s counting – “err, Harry and Niall?”

“Dancing,” Zayn says. He’s got a cautionary hand on Liam’s shoulder.

“With each other?” Liam asks, then giggles. “I hope they’re not, um, you know.” He makes an attempt at a crude gesture and laughs again. “Because of Louis, you know.”

Louis frowns. “Because of me.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. He straightens up in his seat and pushes Zayn’s hand off. “Because you’re all. Over-protective, and shit."

Zayn is looking at Louis now, though it’s an expression he can’t really read. “I’m not,” Louis stutters. Liam makes a skeptical face and Louis really doesn’t like the way it makes his stomach churn. “I’m _not,_ ” he insists again, even though the conversation is making him clench his fists and fight the urge to go back out onto the dance floor and put his hands all over Harry. Zayn is still standing silently. Good on him, Louis thinks, avoid the uncomfortable conversations. Across the bar, the screen is showing some football game from earth, and Liam’s distracted by it again. Louis leaves.

“C’mon,” he mutters into Harry’s ear as he presses up against him, pushes him towards the darkest corner of the club and doesn’t let go of him until Zayn comes to round them up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for self-harm and attempted suicide in this chapter.

“Harry, you there?” Liam snaps his fingers, and Harry, who’s been staring off into the distance for several minutes, shakes his head a bit and turns back to the screen in front of him. Across the desk, Liam frowns a little but doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles. The space between his eyebrows furrows in concentration. Liam raises his eyebrows at Louis.

Louis shrugs. He actually has no idea what Liam is trying to say with his face. “What’re you working on?” Louis asks from his own desk.

“Stat charts,” Harry answers. He scratches his side with one hand and types something with the other. Louis looks up at Liam, who raises his eyebrows again and shrugs.

Zayn convinces Harry to make dinner with him that night. “I bet you’re good at it,” he says, tossing a pack of freeze-dried meat at him. Harry catches it deftly but just stares down at it as Zayn moves around the kitchen.

“Never really tried,” he says, and looks up when Zayn comes over and takes the package out of his hands after it’s clear Harry isn’t going to do anything with it.

“Then we’ll teach you, yeah?” he says, and grins.

They get a new part for the radar delivered, and with it comes a young Fleet scientist named Andy, who apparently helped develop the new technology on this thing they’ve ordered. He’s politely pleasant to Louis but when Harry wanders over from his desk, Andy’s face lights up.

“Can’t believe I didn’t realize,” he says, laughing. “You’re Grimshaw’s droids!” Harry fumbles with the screwdriver in his hand and ducks his head, obviously pleased. Louis struggles not to look too fond. Andy grins and claps him on the back. “You were in a few of my classes at Academy,” he says, amiably.

“Can’t say I remember, sorry,” Louis says honestly.

“S’okay,” says Andy. “You were always brilliant, both of you.”

Zayn makes a noise and the radar does something funky, so Andy goes off to help him. When he gets back to Louis and Harry to gather up his tools, he’s looking at them both a little curiously. “Seriously,” he says, “you guys were crazy. You should be off, I dunno, saving the galaxy, or something. Not all the way in the middle of nowhere.” He shrugs and heaves his bag over his shoulder. “Wanna give me a lift back to the port, mate?” he calls over his shoulder.

Louis turns to look at Harry. He’s gone.

When Louis walks into Harry’s room late that night Harry’s still awake, his t-shirt bunched up under his arms and the panel on the left of his abdomen is gone and everything under it - wiring and data chips and things - it’s all torn up, like someone had just taken their claws into it. Louis freezes, and Harry pulls his shirt down. He stares at Louis with wide eyes.

“What are you doing?” Louis manages to ask. His voice shakes without his permission.

“Thought you and Zayn were working all night,” says Harry, not looking away. He twitches, but it looks involuntary.

“Jeep wouldn’t start,” says Louis. The air is too thick and Harry won’t stop staring and his chest is still torn up and nothing about this conversation feels right. “Hazza, what were you doing?” When Harry doesn’t reply, just stares at him and shakes his head back and forth, Louis says again, louder and sharply, “Haz!”

Harry jumps and looks down at himself then, runs one hand around to his left like he’s feeling the missing panel and wiring underneath. There’s an entire room between them and Louis feels like his own wiring is going faulty, can’t get his knees to bend or legs to move. “I just thought,” Harry says, his hand frantically yanking his shirt up again. “Nick wouldn’t tell me, so.” He twitches again, his whole body shaking, and when he looks down at himself he breathes out, “oh my god.”

Louis’ vision is actually spinning. There’s too much information trying to run its way through his parallel processors and he can’t even identify what emotion he’s supposed to be feeling. He looks away from Harry, tries to focus on something else so the whirring in his brain will go away, but it doesn’t.

“Louis,” Harry says, and Louis looks at him again. His face is twisted and he’s perched on the edge of the bed and curled in on himself, one arm wrapped around his middle. “Louis, I didn’t mean – it’s so hard and it’s so _far,_ Louis – ” his voice breaks off. He suddenly looks small to Louis, and frail, and breakable. They’re not supposed to be breakable, and Harry’s in the process of trying to break himself. It’s a horrible thought and Louis feels _angry_ , just for a second, because _what the fuck, Haz_ , _this isn’t what we wanted,_ and then Harry runs his hand over an exposed end of a wire and it buzzes sharply.

Louis’ feet catch up with his brain again and he walks over to kneel in front of Harry. His face keeps twisting up and his whole body jerks again. Louis gets one hand on Harry’s free hand and when Harry goes to move his hand out of Louis’ grip, his shoulder locks up with a sharp noise. Immediately his mouth drops open.  “Lou,” he says, and now he looks really terrified. He’s stopped breathing, which isn’t – they don’t need it all the time, but it’s supposed to be an automatic function. Louis wants to panic. He sets his face firmly instead.

“Let me see,” he says, pulling on Harry’s shirt. Harry moves his hand away from his side slowly, and Louis says, “Haz, now,” harsher than he should.

“I can’t,” Harry whispers. He jerks again. Louis grabs his arm and moves it out of the way himself, shoves the t-shirt up more so he can see where the skin’s been pulled away and all of Harry’s wiring is exposed. Harry hadn’t even been able to do much damage; there are important wires pulled out and what looks like some smashed-in casing. He hadn’t reached anything further in, but the amount of force he’d obviously had to put into it to get it even this bad makes Louis’s jaw set. Harry is still awake, and that’s what matters.

“It’s not even that bad,” he says. It’s a bitter-tasting lie and he’s only half sure he’s saying it to make Harry feel better and not himself. Harry makes a pathetic, shuddering noise above him and Louis cups his face with both hands. “You’re going to be fine,” he says, again, unsure if he actually means it. “We’re going to call Nick and you’re going to be fine.” He punctuates his words by pinching Harry’s cheek, and then he slides one hand under Harry’s arm and hoists him up.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” Louis grips him tighter and shushes him but he doesn’t stop his stuttered apologies.

“Zayn,” Louis calls, halfway down the hallway, “Zayn, get out here, now!”

Liam opens his own door sleepily, takes in Harry shuddering and crying in Louis’ arms, and blinks himself awake. “Is he okay?” he asks.

Louis would like to punch him for asking stupid questions but settles for glaring instead. “No,” he says, “he’s not and we need to call Nick, now.”

“I – can I do something?”

Louis entirely understands why Liam didn’t get into the Academy. “You can call Nick,” he growls. “Do not stop until you get him on the line.”

“Okay,” Liam says, and runs to get the comm from the hall box. Zayn comes around the corner and sees Liam, sees Harry and Louis, and immediately makes the right choice, which is to come over and support Harry on his other side. Together, they get Harry out to the lounge by the time Liam has managed to get Nick talking.

Louis leans over Harry where he’s sprawled on the couch.  “You’re going to be fine,” he says again, and Harry nods this time.

It’s only after Nick guides Zayn through getting Harry’s wiring back into place and promises to send new casings asap that Louis drops heavily onto the floor next to the couch. Harry’s still laid out, shut down, but breathing properly now. Zayn hands the comm to Louis, pats him somewhat awkwardly on the shoulder, and heads out.

“Louis,” says Nick on the comm. He sounds so terribly, terribly tired.

“I’m sorry,” Louis whispers.

“It isn’t your fault." 

“It is, though,” Louis says. “He’d told me before and I didn’t think to tell you because I didn’t think it would be a problem, I’m so _stupid_ , Nick.” Louis drops his forehead onto his bent knees and scrunches his eyes shut. “I should’ve, I don’t know, I don’t know, but – ”

“You’re not stupid, Louis,” Nick interrupts. Louis winces just slightly at the roughness in his voice. “You didn’t know, okay?” Nick inhales and exhales in a rush, the way Louis remembers him doing when things were stressful at the lab. If he concentrates enough, he can picture him sitting there, leaning forward out of his chair with his elbows on his desk, buttons and wires and ’droid parts everywhere. It looks familiar and comfortable and it looks like _Nick_. Louis misses it, misses him so much there’s a dull, thudding pain in his chest just above where his sternum should be. He will not cry.

“ – remember?” Nick is saying, and Louis tries to concentrate on him again. He grunts out something like a “no.”

Nick shuffles something Louis can’t see. “Remember when I told you guys that you could do whatever you wanted?” he asks. Of course Louis remembers it. _You’ve got free will,_ Nick had said, leaning down slightly to look them both in the eye, _and that means you can do whatever the bloody hell you want._ Louis chokes back what might have been a sob or might have been a laugh.

“I can’t make you do anything, and neither can anybody else,” Nick says. “And,” he hesitates just for a second, and then continues very deliberately, “you can’t make each other do anything either.”

Louis is very, very still.

“You can’t make Harry do anything, you know? And you can’t,” Nick stops abruptly and makes a noise like he’s clearing his throat. When he comes back his voice is strained and quiet. “You can’t make him not do anything either.”

Louis is gripping the comm so hard it’ll probably break soon. “Yeah,” he says, barely audible.

“Louis, I’m,” Nick says, before his voice breaks again. “I’m so, so, sorry. You don’t – you can’t even know how sorry I am.”

“I know,” says Louis.

Harry turns on his side and blinks his eyes open sleepily. “Lou?” he says.

Louis spins around, dropping the comm from his ear. “Hey, Haz,” he says. “How’re you feeling?”

Harry blinks slowly and tries to shrug, the movement inhibited by the way he’s laying on his shoulder. “I’m alright, I guess.”

“You scared me,” Louis says. His hands twist into tight fists. “That was really scary, Hazza.”

“I know.” Harry drops his gaze to a loose thread on the couch.

“Then – ”

“It’s _hard,_ Lou,” says Harry. He picks at the thread again, twists it between his fingers. Then, “I’m tired,” he says, and turns around to face the back of the couch.

“Louis,” says Nick’s voice from the comm still in his hand. Louis hangs up.

 

*

 

Liam is a man on a mission, and Louis is a ’droid avoiding him. Harry seems better, now, but Louis hasn’t let him out of his sight in the past week. Liam is watching him like a hawk, too, Louis knows, but he’s a little less obsessive about it. But he’s got a look in his eye that Louis’ come to associate with People Who Want Questions Answered, so he’s actively avoiding any and all one-on-one time with Liam.

Liam approaches him one night in the main office, where Louis’ having to file paperwork on that generator. He glances not-so-subtly around to see where Harry went and then remembers that Zayn had commandeered Harry for another “important lesson in the kitchen.” Dammit.

“Can we talk about Harry?” is the first thing Liam says.

 Louis sighs and flops into a chair. “Not much to say, right?” he says. He’s being deliberately thick and Nick would be giving him hard stares, but. Nick isn’t here.

“I just wondered if there’s anything we can be doing for him,” Liam continues, apparently unfazed. “Like, giving him different things to do, or something.”

Louis narrows his eyes. With only four of them on base, they mostly split up everything that needs to be done by themselves, but technically, Liam is the director and he signs off on the more important assignments. So he doesn’t need to be telling Louis this, really – if he wants Harry doing something else, he can just tell him so himself. Louis says as much out loud.

Liam fixes him with a slightly sad, meaningful look. “But I’m _asking you_ ,” he says, and, oh.

Louis ducks his head and looks back down at the paperwork still in his hands. Liam’s asking him because he actually – because he might – because Harry is Louis’, is why, and Louis knows that isn’t actually how it is, but he doesn’t want to give that up or give it to Liam or. He clenches his jaw. “You can do what you think is best,” he says, with some difficulty. He looks up to see Liam raising his eyebrows in concern.

“Are you sure?” Liam says. “Do you want to – ”

“I’m sure, Liam,” Louis says, standing up and looking for the proper file for this bloody paperwork. “It’s for Harry, okay?”

Liam makes a sound like he wants to say something else, but Louis turns his back and he leaves without saying it.

 

*

 

Harry touches Louis near constantly, these days, and Louis tries not to let it make him feel smug around Liam. It’s probably Harry’s way of, like, grounding himself, or something. Louis walks out to the radar one day, where Zayn and Harry are still, somehow, working on it. Harry’s free hand immediately comes out to grab for Louis’ without looking.

“Did you hear about Liam?” Zayn asks, blinking the sun out of his eyes.

Harry’s face lights up in excitement, but Louis shakes his head no.

“He applied for a position on a ship,” Harry says, squeezing his hand.

“Thought he couldn’t do that,” Louis says.

“No, that Andy guy, from last month, he gave him the name of a commander and said he’d put in a good word,” says Zayn. Good guy, Andy. Louis likes him.

“He doesn’t want us to know but he told Niall and Niall can’t keep secrets,” Harry says.

Louis laughs. “Well, that’s,” he says, and pauses to search for just the right word, “er. Exciting, for him.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry agrees. “Everybody should get to go to space.” He tilts his head on the last few words and blinks at the radar wiring in front of him, like he’s forgotten what it is. Louis grips his hand harder and Harry blinks out of it and smiles.

“You okay with it, then?” Louis asks Zayn.

Zayn shrugs a little, considering. “I mean, I’ll miss him, yeah. But it’s what he’s wanted, innit?”

Liam would have been terrible at keeping it a secret even if Niall hadn’t spilled. He comes by the main office one day when Harry’s been working inside all day, leans up against the doorframe, and says, casual as you please, “any comms for me today, Harry?”

Louis laughs and hides it behind his hand. Liam, who is now trying not to fidget as Harry scratches his head and shuffles through some random papers with this slightly befuddled expression on his face, frowns at him. Harry knocks over a model on Liam’s desk and fumbles to get it upright again.

“Harry,” Liam says, through gritted teeth, “did you see anything or not?”

“Oh, yeah!” Harry exclaims, taking a comm off of the top of a stack of paper on his desk. He bounces over to Liam and hands it over with a flourish. “And by the way,” he says lowly, with a glance towards Louis, “we know, so."

Liam blushes bright red and snatches the comm out of Harry’s hand. “I don’t know what you think – ”

“Read it, Liam!” Louis yells. Fuck this beating around the bush stuff, honestly. Liam stares at the folded paper for a second, and then says, “where’s – ” before Zayn rounds the corner and steps through the doorway with a “so you got it then?”

Liam purses his lips, and then whips the paper open and scans it. His face goes from scared shitless to elated in .65 seconds exactly. Louis counts. Then he folds it up again, and says, trying to keep the silliest grin off of his face, “I got the job,” and everyone starts yelling.

It’s only a week later when Louis is in the office with Harry and Liam again, and there’s a nice-but-firm looking Fleet commander delivering Liam’s deployment orders.

“There’s been another opening,” the commander says, turning towards Harry meaningfully, and Louis’ chest lurches.

“Officer Payne gave you a very favorable recommendation for service on board the Sagittarius,” she continues. “You could have the position alongside him as soon as you want.” And honestly, who is this commander lady anyway, coming out to their outpost just to take Liam away, then offer to take Harry, too, as if that was something he wanted, and hasn’t even spared a glance at Louis since she jumped off the Jeep a few hours ago.

Harry blinks, slowly, at the commander and then at Liam. Liam looks a little nervous, but hopeful.

“I,” Harry says to the commander, but not looking away from Liam. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Liam’s face falls. “Of course,” the commander says. “Which way to the galley?”

When she’s gone from the room Harry won’t stop staring at Liam and making small, ridiculous, confused faces.

“Well, that’s nice,” Louis says, sharper than he intended.

Harry turns towards him. Liam looks up at Louis, frowning, and Louis turns on his heel and leaves.

“Lou, wait,” Liam calls, following. He grabs Louis’ arm as he tries to go around a corner. “I thought you’d be happy for him,” he says.

Louis wrenches his arm out of Liam’s grasp. “Happy that he’s leaving me?” he says, curling his hands into tight fists. “How could I be happy with Harry off in another system?”

“He hasn’t said yes yet.”

“But he will,” Louis shoots back, and no, he is not going to panic now, no, that is absolutely not on.

“It’s what he’s always wanted,” says Liam.

“What he always wanted was me,” Louis shouts. “Not some stupid flying ship, and not you!”

In the silence that follows, Liam breathes in sharply and takes a step backwards. “I’m sorry,” he says, and damn it, he does sound sorry, and he’s not actually got anything to be sorry for.

Louis rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.  He takes a deep breath, listens to the way his chest cavity creaks when it expands. _Count to ten_ , Nick used to say, goddamn Nick and his goddamn anger management methods. It works, though.

“I’m not trying to take him away, Louis,” Liam says, like it’s something he’s thought about saying before. “It’s Harry’s choice, and you’ve got to let Harry make it.” He turns on his heel, and Louis listens to the sound of his boots the whole way down the hallway.

Louis knows, of course, that it _is_ what Harry has always wanted, it _is_ what will make him happiest, and that he can’t be the one to stop him, but. But.

God, it hurts.

Louis goes back into the room they’d been in with the commander. Harry’s sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall, running a hand absent-mindedly through his hair.

Louis sits down next to him so they’re pressed up against each other, thighs and hips and shoulders. “Hey,” he says, turning his head down to press a kiss to Harry’s shoulder through his shirt.

“Hi,” Harry says. He holds his hand out between them.

Louis laces their fingers together. “You can go if you want,” he says quietly after a moment. “I’m sorry I was a twat.”

Harry chuckles and squeezes his fingers. “You’re always a twat,” he says. Louis squawks indignantly, and Harry uses the most effective means he has of shutting him up, which is kissing him. When he pulls away he shuffles down the wall enough to tuck his head into the crook of Louis’ neck.

“You should do it,” Louis says. His throat contracts.

Harry scoots infinitesimally closer. “I think I will,” he says. Louis squeezes his eyes closed and counts to ten. 

 

*

 

It’s dark when Harry leaves.

This is, granted, because it is so early that Gamma Taurus IV’s sun hasn’t come up yet, and Liam and Harry have got a transport to catch out at the spaceport in a few hours. Louis wonders, though, if the heavy weight that’s been settled in his gut for the past week doesn’t have something to do with his perception of just how dark it is.

Harry slides out of bed when his alarm goes off, and Louis has to resist the urge to wrap his arms around him, pull him back against him and tell him to _stay here, stay with me, don’t leave me_. He lies on his side and watches Harry methodically getting dressed, buttoning his shirt up all the way and tucking the ends of his pants into his Fleet-issue boots.

Harry sits down on the edge of the bed when he’s done and reaches out to press his thumb under Louis’ bottom lip. “Coming to see me off?” he murmurs with a grin. Louis kisses the pad of his thumb, briefly, and pushes himself up.

Niall is, somehow, his ridiculously chipper self even at the stupidly early hour – when they finally get to his ship after a mostly silent Jeep ride. Liam and Zayn sat in the front, talking in low voices, and Louis and Harry sat in the back with their hands held in between them.

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Louis asks, rubbing his thumb along the inside of Harry’s wrist as Niall and Liam take the bags to the Craic.

Harry laughs. “Nah,” he says, flipping his hair out of his eyes. “I’m just off to save the universe, that’s all.”

Louis smiles through the tight, painful feeling in his chest. “You’re going to be the hero of us all,” he says.

 Harry ducks his head and looks pleased. “I'll comm you,” he says seriously. “I'll tell you when I get shore leave.”

“Broke my comm last week,” Louis says.

Harry frowns. “Then fix it,” he says. “I’ll use the hall comm.” He leans in and rests his forehead against Louis'. Louis leans up and kisses him.

“Up and at ‘em, lads!” Niall calls.

Harry leans back only to pull Louis into a crushing hug. _Don’t let go,_ Louis thinks, and then Harry is pulling back again and hugging Zayn, too, and Liam is waving at Louis and then they’re in Niall’s ship and then they’re gone.

Zayn comes over to stand next to Louis, leaning against the side of the Jeep. Neither of them move until the ship’s too far off to see anymore.

“Well,” says Zayn, “better get to work, then.” He swings up into the driver’s seat. Louis turns to go around to the other side when he actually pays attention to what Zayn’s wearing this morning.

“That is the most ridiculous coat I’ve ever seen,” he says, and he’s not really sure why he’s said it. Zayn looks mock-offended. Or really offended. Louis still can’t read him all that well.

“I’ll have you know this is the highest of fashion on my planet,” he says, shifting in his seat to get the long coat situated under him. He wrinkles his nose. “Although it is, a bit, yeah.”

Zayn is a lovely guy, he really is, and with two guys gone there’s going to be enough work to keep them busy, but. But. Everything reminds Louis of Harry – he heard that, once, in a stupid holomovie, but it’s entirely true - and Louis can’t get away from the feeling that maybe, if he’d done something differently, if he’d been better, been more of something, less of some other thing, then maybe Harry would still be here, with him.

Or he’d be out there, with Harry. If he hadn’t been, you know. Emotional.

Because that’s the real problem, isn’t it, the _emotion_ that makes Louis shake as he goes through the door to his room, and drop to his bed unsteadily, and that makes him a liability on a starship. Louis scrubs his hands roughly down his face and tries counting to ten, and counts to ninety-seven before he gives up because he’s shaking violently, now, his knee is bouncing and when he goes to take off his boots he can’t grasp the laces. He kicks them off and tugs off the jumper he’s wearing that’s actually one of Harry’s, god, he should’ve taken it with him, why did he leave it here, it’s too big for Louis anyway.

There’s something tickling his cheek and Louis uses the heel of his palm to brush it off, and it comes away wet. Because he’s _crying._ What the hell. He scrubs at his eyes again, willing it to stop, but it doesn’t, of course, because Doctor Nick Fucking Grimshaw wanted androids with _independent emotions_ and _tear ducts_ and Louis never asked for anything like that, never asked to be paired with the only other weird droid in the galaxy. Androids aren’t supposed to get attached. They’re supposed to be _droids._

Louis feels somewhat blessed to know his creator personally and to know that he can curse him with impunity, so he does, under his breath and over and over until he shuts down, curled around a pillow that smells like motor oil and liquid coolant.

 

*

 

There’s a knocking at Louis’ door some time later – Louis blinks awake immediately. It’s been twelve hours since Harry and Liam left, and Louis’ slept through a whole day.

“Louis?” Zayn says, through the door, “I think you should get up now.” Louis gets up and crosses the small room to the door. Zayn smiles a little. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” Louis answers, and laces it with as much sarcasm as he can muster, because he is so obviously not fine. He is acutely aware of the lack of Harry in the room - it’s colder without him here, and it’s not just the malfunctioning air conditioning system.

“Niall wants to know if we want to go out,” Zayn says as Louis rubs at his eyes and tries to clear his head. “He could take us out and bring us back in the morning.”

Louis nods, grateful that Zayn didn’t want to linger on the _feelings_ issue, and goes to get his shoes. He ignores the jumper crumpled in the corner of the room. He’s distant and silent the whole way out to the airfield, and Zayn takes it in stride, but Louis’ surprised when he sits next to him on Niall’s ship and not up front. He shifts in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You don’t have to sit with me,” Louis snaps after a moment.

Zayn shrugs and crosses one leg over his knee. “I like sitting with you,” he says simply, and Louis lets him leave it at that.

The bar is dark and smoky and Louis abandons Niall and Zayn as soon as they’re through the door, even though Niall sends him concerned looks and Zayn makes faces like he isn’t quite sure whether to stop him or not. But they’re not the ones who just lost their best friend to the military, after all – well. Maybe Zayn sort of did.

It’s not the same, is the point.

So Louis clambers onto a barstool and plants himself there and lets the bartender mix him weird drinks that won’t get him drunk. He’s nursing something green and glowing when a big guy with chest tattoos sidles up to him and leans in with a leer.

“Looks like you need some cheering up,” he says, but it doesn’t sound cheery by any stretch of the imagination. Louis shrugs. “These can help,” the guy says, and holds up a little foil packet between two fingers. He shakes it and it rattles with pills.

Louis snorts. “Wouldn’t do anything, mate,” he says, “I’m a ’droid.”

The guy eyes Louis’ drink dubiously. “Then that’s not doing much either, is it?” he says. Louis doesn’t respond and the guy turns around to lean his elbows on the bar. “I could help with that, too,” he says.

His voice makes Louis shiver. “With what?”

“It’s a little chip,” he says, “in your spinal column.” He gives Louis a significant look. “That’s where your emotions come from.”

Louis blinks. “My emotions.”

“Sure. My wife is a mechanic. She could block them for you.”

Louis rolls his drink around on the bartop. He feels a little unbalanced and he’s not sure what makes him lean slightly forward, looking around the bar to see Zayn or Niall. When he doesn’t see them, he looks back at the guy. “You mean so I wouldn’t,” he says, and stops. Bites his lip. “I wouldn’t have to feel anything?” The guy shakes his head and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“We’d just have to take a little bit out, put a little bit in. No worries.” His voice still sends chills up Louis’ spine and he’s about to tell him to fuck off, what kind of creep does that, anyway - but he glances down the bar again and there’s a man curly hair walking up and he looks like Harry and Louis’ chest contracts, quick and tight and painful, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s nodding and dropping a fiver on the bar and following this guy, this sketchy, tattooed guy, out back of the bar, and meeting his tiny bleach-blonde wife with a screwdriver in her hand.

“Only a pinch, love,” she says, and then she takes the tool to the back of his neck and twists. It’s not sharp, but it isn’t gentle, the way Nick used to handle them when they needed repairs. Louis panics a little bit because _shit,_ what is he doing, but the words _wouldn’t feel anything_ are twisting in his mind but he’s desperate to just know what that would feel like to not feel, just for a little while. She twists and pulls something and Louis’ vision blacks out for a moment. He flails his hands, and the big guy grabs at them. Then the wife twists again and he can see again, and Louis gasps suddenly and he blinks up at her.

“How d’you feel, love?” she asks. Louis tilts his head.

“I feel fine, thank you,” he says. She smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> derp dee derp android feelings


	5. Chapter 5

Zayn is sharp, see – he’s quiet and observant and he _knows_ things when no one else was supposed to know them, because he’s just so good at seeing things the right way. And even though Louis can’t really clearly remember what happened at the bar last week, it doesn’t seem like it could have been so bad to make Zayn keep looking at him as though he’s never seen him before.

“Can I help you with something, Zayn?” Louis asks. He’s in the middle of recalibrating one of the radio dials, but he supposes it can wait.

Zayn narrows his eyes across the room. “So, like, that night at the bar,” he says. “You sort of disappeared?” He turns it up at the end like a question.

“Did I?” Louis asks.

Zayn nods. “Yeah. And you’ve just been kind of, like, weird. So I dunno if you wanna talk about anything, but, like. You can. If you need to.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Thank you,” he says in his sincerest tone. Zayn nods after a moment and leaves. Louis goes back to the radio dial and wonders what Zayn could have meant.

“Louis,” Zayn says, a few days later, at dinner. Louis isn’t eating, but he thinks it’s good for morale to be there with Zayn. “Have you heard from Harry or Liam yet?”

Louis sits for a moment and searches his memory for _Harry_ and _Liam._ He doesn’t come up with anything on either of those names, so he says, “No, I haven’t.”

Zayn nods slowly. “Well, if you do,” he says, “let me know, yeah?” Louis agrees and Zayn goes back to his food.

 

*

 

Louis walks into the hallway near the comm the next day when Zayn’s talking to someone on the other end. He stops and turns to go, but Zayn waves him over. “It’s Nick Grimshaw,” he says, raising his eyebrows and holding the comm away from his mouth. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“Sure,” Louis says. Zayn mutters something into the comm and then hands it over.

“Hello, Louis,” Nick says.

“Hello, Nick Grimshaw,” Louis says agreeably.

Pause. “How are you feeling, love?"

“I’m a little cold.”

Nick laughs. “I mean, how are you _feeling_?”

Louis’ eyebrows draw together a little bit. “I don’t really feel emotions, Nick,” he says slowly. Nick should know this, he made him.

Nick laughs, and doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then he huffs out a little breath. “Funny,” he says.

“How are you feeling, Nick?” Louis asks, to be polite.

Nick doesn’t say anything for a moment again. “Can you put Zayn back on the phone, darling?” he says softly, so Louis gives Zayn the comm. He takes it from him with a nod and a significant look down the hallway. Louis is nothing if not an amiable droid, so he takes the hint and goes to the radio room – some wires need work in there, anyway.

With the radar still not quite up to speed, Louis hardly sees Zayn. He’s out all day and comes in only to make himself dinner and smile a little at Louis, sometimes. Louis keeps noticing things to do inside the outpost, which is alright by him - he can make himself useful anywhere, he guesses.

 

*

 

Niall comes over, one day, to watch some television show he recorded from earth. He hugs Louis when Zayn drives them up and asks how he’s been. “As well as can be,” Louis says.

“You look a little tired, maybe.”

Louis considers this. “I could use a charge.” Zayn snorts and flops down on the couch.

Niall returns from the kitchen with his third beer after as many episodes. “You were kind of scaring us a few weeks ago, mate,” he says, flicking Louis’ ear as he goes by.

“Oh.” Louis angles his head away from the flick. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

Niall barks out a nervous laugh and Zayn looks startled, fixes Louis with a stare. Louis folds his hands in his lap and waits for the TV show to be over. When Niall’s getting up to go, Zayn waves Louis out. “Go start the Jeep, yeah?” he says, so Louis goes and pretends that he can’t hear Zayn and Niall talking in muttered voices. He does perk up a little, though, when Niall says “ – and maybe call Nick,” because he knows a Nick, and wouldn’t it be funny if it was the same Nick? Well. He thinks it would be, anyway, but the humans might not think so.

Niall steps up into the Jeep and gives him a tight smile. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks.

“Of course,” Louis replies, and drives him out to the port.

It’s a week before Zayn really speaks to him again, when Louis is underneath the Jeep’s hood and Zayn is handing him tools. “So you haven’t heard from Liam or Harry, have you?”

“No,” Louis says. “Could you hand me the belt?”

Zayn does. “It’s just that Liam has commed me a few times so it’s a little weird that Harry hasn’t commed you.”

“Not sure what’s so odd about that,” Louis says, attaching the new belt.

“Because he’s _Harry,_ ” Zayn says, a little edge in his voice. “Isn’t that weird?”

Louis scans his memory again but he really, really can’t think of why someone named Harry not calling him would be weird. “I really wouldn’t know, Zayn,” he says. There’s a sudden crash on the side of the Jeep and Louis startles a bit, straightens up and sees Zayn grimacing and rubbing at his hand.

“It’s weird because he’s your best friend,” Zayn says sharply. “He’s gone and you don’t even care and it’s weird, Louis, I don’t see why you don’t see that.”

Louis can’t see any damage to the Jeep where Zayn hit it so he bends over again to work on getting that belt attached. “I think you’re mistaken,” he says. “I don’t know anyone named Harry.”

Zayn takes a step away from the Jeep and runs a hand over his face. There’s a long silence. “Go inside,” Zayn says, after a while, low and quiet.

Louis straightens up and starts to protest, but Zayn holds up a hand. “Go inside, Louis,” he repeats, not meeting his eyes. Louis goes.

The outpost is quiet and dark when Zayn knocks on Louis’ door a few hours later.

“Hey,” Zayn says as he opens the door, voice scratching a little like he’s been talking too much.

Louis stands up when he comes in. “Hello, Zayn,” he says.

Zayn waves at the chair in the corner of the room. “Can I?” he says, trailing off, and Louis nods. Zayn sinks down and taps his fingers on his knees. Louis waits patiently for him to speak again. “Louis,” Zayn says, after a moment. He scratches at the back of his neck. “I think you need to go back to earth for a while.”

“Are those new orders?” Louis says.

“No,” says Zayn. “I mean - I sort of, like, I got you some time off. You’re gonna go see Nick.”

“I can do that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Zayn fiddles in his pocket until he finds his cigarette and starts it up. He breathes in smoke and lets it out again before speaking. “Are you sure you’re not playing some kind of joke on me?” he asks.

“I don’t see what the point would be of doing that,” Louis says. “What could I joke about?”

“Yeah, I don’t either,” Zayn says. He pushes himself up and lingers in the doorway for a second, tapping his cigarette idly against his finger. “Niall is gonna come pick you up in the morning, so.” He makes a motion to the room at large. “You can get your stuff together, I guess.”

“I’ll just charge tonight,” Louis says. Zayn nods and leaves, closing the door behind him softly.

 

 

 

*

 

Nick is waiting at the spaceport when Louis gets to London. Louis recognizes him – of course he does, even though Zayn looked at him skeptically and said he could send a picture if he needed. _Of course_ Louis remembers his creator. Nick smiles and moves forward with his arms stretched out and Louis stares at him blankly for a second before he realizes Nick is trying to hug him – he starts to put his arms up, too, but by that time Nick’s seen his hesitation and he stops a little short, drops his arms to his sides.

“Hello, Nick Grimshaw,” Louis says, smiling.

Nick looks at him the way Niall looked at him yesterday when he had gotten off the Craic at the military base. Louis doesn’t really understand what the look means, but he doesn’t think he should ask. “Come on, love,” Nick says, ruffling his hair briefly and steering him away from the arrival zone.

Nick took the tube and it’s rush hour, so Louis hikes his bag up under his arm and squeezes in between a couple of businessmen, while Nick just tries to get both his legs inside the door. He tips forward when the train starts up and stumbles into Louis a little bit. “Sorry,” he says, trying to right himself. Louis twists one arm behind him and holds his hand to keep him upright as the train moves again, and Nick opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then doesn’t.

“You know where the guest bedroom is,” Nick says, slinging his coat across the back of the couch when they get to his flat.

Louis stops for a moment. The living room is warm and lit with yellow light and Louis knows he’s been here before, but it confuses his memory somehow. “It’s different,” he says.

Nick nudges him gently out of the middle of the walkway so he can get to the kitchen. “It’s the same as it’s always been,” he says.

“Something is missing,” Louis insists, running through his memory visuals and trying to picture Nick’s living room from before. He’s having a hard time. Nick snorts and doesn’t answer, just clatters around in the kitchen to get the tea on instead. When nothing comes up in his memory, Louis finally moves and goes to join him. He sits on the edge of a chair with his feet and knees together and watches Nick moving around. He likes watching people.

Nick runs a hand through his falling quiff and turns around to lean against the counter. He rolls his eyes. “Jesus, don’t just stare at me, that’s a bit creepy,” he says, crossing his arms. Louis averts his eyes immediately. He hears Nick sigh.

“Well, don’t do that, either,” Nick says, so Louis looks back at him and blinks at him curiously.

Nick frowns, then his face twists. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to tell you what to do.”

“That’s okay,” says Louis. Nick exhales heavily and turns around to make his tea.

Louis unpacks his bag and plugs in for the night. He wakes up the next morning before Nick does, and putters around the flat trying to remember what’s missing. It doesn’t bother him, exactly, but it’s a little unsettling. He gives up when Nick comes into the kitchen with a stack of papers to grade – “Had to pick up another hobby with you gone,” he’d said, when he commed him after he got the job teaching at the Academy. Louis faintly remembers he’d been proud of Nick, but he can’t think of how that would feel. He nudges Nick’s ankle with his toe and Nick hums distractedly.

“Am I in trouble?” Louis asks.

“What gave you that idea?” Nick says, looking up from the papers.

“Because Zayn sent me off-planet and I hadn’t fixed the radar yet,” Louis says.

Nick laughs. “You’re not in trouble,” he says, reaching over and patting Louis’ knee a bit awkwardly. He pulls his hand back and flexes his fingers. “But I might do some tests on you, is that okay?”

Louis nods. “Yes.” He doesn’t mind tests when they’re Nick’s.

Nick’s lab is just like Louis remembered, too, but it seems bigger. Nick motions around vaguely and says, “have a seat, then,” so Louis pushes a few spare parts out of the way and jumps up onto the counter while Nick wheels his chair over. He stares at Louis for a long time, not saying anything, until he huffs and crosses his arms across his chest. “How’re you feeling?” he asks, leaning back, still studying Louis’ face intently.

“I don’t feel emotions – ”

“Humor me,” Nick says. “Imagine you did.”

Louis crosses his ankles where they dangle above the floor and folds his hands together in his lap. “I feel,” he starts, and pauses. “Fine?” he says, tentatively.

Nick runs a hand through his hair. “Anything else?” he prompts. Louis looks down at his lap.

Nick reaches one skinny leg out and nudges Louis’ foot with his own. “Come on.”

Louis can feel his processor overloading. _He doesn’t feel anything._ “Confused,” he says, to say something.

“Why?”

“Because you’re asking me questions I don’t know how to answer,” Louis says quickly. He blinks, and curls in on himself a bit.

Nick nods like he’s not surprised. “You’ve got a processor in you, here,” he says, wheeling his chair over and pulling a big, rolled-up sheet of paper out of a drawer. He unrolls it and flattens it out on the desk next to Louis. It’s a diagram – a detailed drawing of a droid, all pulled apart and sectioned off, and in the lower right corner he reads **Nick Grimshaw: AD8X21: 3 rd Revision**. He tilts his head a little, and follows Nick’s finger to where it points to a close-up of the back of the droid’s neck.

“See that?” Nick asks. “’S where your emotions are supposed to process. It was working when you left, so.” He looks up at Louis. “Any idea why it isn’t anymore?”

Louis nods. “Because it’s blocked.”

Nick jumps a bit. “What?”

Louis looks back down at the diagram. “I’ve got an extra chip here,” he says, pointing next to Nick’s finger.

It’s not the kind of thing Nick wanted to hear, because he makes a choked kind of noise. “You’ve got an E-chip?” he asks.

Louis nods again, slower. “I guess?”

Nick blows out a long breath. “Shit.” He takes another breath. “That’s fixable, though,” he says. He sighs again and runs a hand down his face. He pushes his chair back and rolls to the opposite counter and picks up a pad of paper. “Who put it in?”

Louis blinks and doesn’t answer.

“Come on,” Nick says, impatient. He rolls back to Louis. “It’s illegal for the Fleet to use them, you’ve got to tell me.”

“It wasn’t the Fleet,” Louis says.

Nick frowns. “Louis.”

“It wasn’t,” Louis says. “I asked them.”

“You asked them?” says Nick. “What do you mean?”

“I asked for it.”

Nick’s silent for a moment, staring at Louis. “You asked for it,” he says again.

Louis nods and says, “Yes.”

There’s another long moment of silence while Nick chews on his bottom lip. “That shouldn’t affect your memory, though,” he says, finally. “Don’t suppose you did something to that?”

Louis shakes his head.

Nick nods and flips his pen between his fingers. “It’s easily fixable,” he says. “I mean, I can take it out.”

“I don’t see why,” Louis says. “I’m functional, right?”

“Yes,” Nick says after some hesitation.

Louis tilts his head. “Androids aren’t supposed to have emotions,” he says. “Right?”

Nick opens his mouth but doesn’t answer.

Louis shrugs and slides off the counter.  “Are we done?”

 

 

 

*

 

Zayn comms Nick’s flat a few days after Louis got to earth. Nick’s in the middle of testing Louis’ reflexes by poking him with a skewer, and he pokes Louis’ side when he answers and Louis jumps. “Y’know I wasn’t – like, I wasn’t trying to _get rid of you_ ,” Zayn says, tripping over his words a little.

“I know that,” Louis says, angling his head to press the comm between his ear and shoulder. He holds his hands out so Nick can continue his poking. “It was nice of you to let me have time off.”

“Well, that’s not really why,” Zayn says. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Louis frowns a little bit. “Do you think I’m not okay?” Nick stops poking for a second, then jabs him in the wrist.

Zayn sighs a little bit. “Honestly, no.”

“Oh,” Louis says. He feels like he’s okay.

“Never mind,” Zayn says. “Enjoy your visit, yeah?” and he hangs up. Louis has to pry his hand away from Nick’s to hang up the receiver on the wall.

“I think my reflexes are in working order,” he says, when Nick tries to take his hand back. Nick keeps a hold of it, though, wraps his long fingers around Louis’ wrist and pulls it towards himself. Louis frowns and pulls back uselessly. “Nick,” he says, warily, tugging his arm back. Nick laughs, and when Louis looks up, he’s smirking at him. Louis lets his arms go lax in his grip and blinks at him. “Oh,” he says. “What are you doing?"

Nick stops smiling and loosens his grip, so he can run his thumb across Louis’ pulse point gently. It tickles and Louis squirms. “Just playing around,” Nick says, letting go and patting Louis’ upper arm with what Louis thinks is affection. “Come on and get a coffee with me, yeah?”

Louis remembers London the same way he remembers Nick’s flat: it’s in his memory drive to know where the coffee shop on the corner is, but it’s all different, like he was never actually there. He sits at a table near the window while Nick waits for his drink and watches the people going by on the sidewalk outside. It’s dead winter and the streets are wet and grey-looking, the opposite of the desert of Gamma Taurus IV. Louis catches his reflection in the warm light on the window and pats his hair down where it’s fluffed up in the back.

Someone walks by and catches his eye as he glances in the window. Louis smiles politely and the man stops, making a woman behind him almost bump into his shoulder; the man blinks at Louis once before his jaw drops, and he grins, then turns and keeps on walking. Louis doesn’t understand it, but it doesn’t bother him much, either. He keeps looking out the window and he only looks up when someone who isn't Nick calls “Lou!” and steps up next to him at the table.

“Louis,” the guy from outside says, making an aborted gesture with his arms. He's got a beanie pulled over a mess of curls, flushed cheeks from the cold, and a huge smile. “Hi,” he says, breathlessly. His eyes keep darting across Louis' face, down his chest, everywhere. Humans are weird. “Louis, are you gonna – ” the guy says, holding his arms out in front of him. When Louis just stares at him, he makes an exasperated noise and bends over to grab Louis’ hands and pull him up out of his seat so he can wrap his arms around him.

Louis freezes.

“I missed you,” the guy says into the skin at Louis’ neck.

Louis frowns in confusion. He brings his hands up and pushes at him until the guy loosens his hold and steps back. Louis immediately drops back into his seat.

“Louis,” the guy says, less giddy than he was before, “say something."

“Where’s Nick?” Louis says.

The guy turns his head, and there’s Nick, behind him, standing a few feet away and watching them carefully. “He’s there,” the guy says. He takes one of Louis’ hands back from where it had been on the table and squeezes it. He looks concerned all of a sudden. “Are you all right?”

“Harry,” says Nick, like a warning.

The guy – Harry – whips his head around to look at Nick again. “What? ”

“Who are you?” Louis asks.

Harry’s head whips back around and he laughs. Louis doesn’t, and when Harry stops, there’s a long moment of silence between the three of them. Harry blinks rapidly, looking down at Louis’ hand and then at his face. It makes Louis squirm a little. Nick doesn’t move.

“Louis,” Harry says, working his mouth like he can’t quite form words right. “Stop being stupid.”

“I don’t know you,” says Louis, tilting his head. “Should I?” He hears Nick let out a long breath.

“What do you mean?” Harry says, not looking away. His voice has dropped since he first walked into the coffee shop, but it’s got an edge to it that Louis knows is from humans feeling panic.

Nick makes a vague motion with his hands and offers a distorted facial expression.

“You’re joking,” Harry says.

Louis shakes his head. “No, I’m – ”

“You’re joking and you just thought it was funny, right?”

Nick steps closer and wraps a hand around Harry’s bicep. “Harry, come on home,” he says.

Harry pulls his sleeves over his hands and rubs at his eyes. “No,” he says angrily. “Lou, come on.” He looks down at Louis, and Louis looks back up at him and studies his face. There’s nothing coming up in his memory. Louis looks away.

Nick begins tugging Harry gently towards the door. “Come on home when you’re ready,” he says to Louis. Harry’s still staring at him and he won’t close his mouth all the way. He doesn’t stop looking at Louis until they’re out of the door and Nick is holding him close against his side.

Louis files it under Weird Things That Happened On Shore Leave and turns to see what kind of drink Nick ordered for him.

 

 

 

*

 

Harry’s at the flat when Louis makes his way back to it. There had been a stilted, awkward conversation between Louis and another ’droid in the shop and Louis’ still mulling over it as he toes his wet shoes off and hangs up his coat in the hall closet. He steps into the living room and stops when he sees Harry on the couch.

“Oh,” Louis says. “Hello.”

Harry blinks lethargically.

“Are you staying with Nick, then?” Louis asks.

“Why didn’t you comm me?"

Louis decides Harry would probably like a cup of tea. “What?” he says, as he goes into the kitchen.

“I commed you,” Harry says, following. “I commed you and you never answered and you never even wrote me anything.”

Louis thinks this is probably the Harry that Zayn had talked about. “I broke my comm,” he says.

Harry looks startled. “You said you would fix it,” he says. “I tried the hall comm, too.”

“Did I?” Louis says, as he fills up the kettle.

“I missed you,” Harry says. He lingers behind Louis in the doorway of the kitchen.

Louis chews on his bottom lip – bad habit, he should stop before he goes back to work – and stands on his tiptoes to reach the top shelf in Nick’s tea cabinet. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he says, but Harry cuts him off by stepping up close behind him and reaching for the Yorkshire himself.

“Why don’t you remember me?” he asks when he hands Louis the box. He doesn’t look at Louis, just fixes his eyes on his own hands.

“There’s nothing to remember,” Louis says honestly.

Harry hits his fist against the counter. It reminds Louis of Zayn. “ _That’s not true_ ,” Harry nearly shouts. As if to emphasize his point, the kettle starts whistling. Nick should really invest in an electric kettle, Louis thinks absently.

Louis turns to the stovetop and turns the burner off. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. His voice has raised its pitch as if it’s automatically trying to match Harry’s. He bites his lip again.

The only sound for a minute is Harry’s breathing and the pathetic whistling of the kettle. Harry opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t get the chance before Nick comes in and starts babbling about hearing the kettle go off, and is there water for me, too, thank you, darling. He distracts Louis enough that he doesn’t notice when Harry leaves the kitchen til Nick clears his throat and pokes him gently with his spoon.

“I’m going to run some more tests,” Nick says, eyes focused on pulling his teabag out of his cup. “If that’s okay with you.”

 

*

 

Louis wakes up in the middle of the night feeling like his insides are off-balance. He runs his hand through his hair, unplugs his charging cable, and goes out to the lounge.

Harry is there, flipping through channels on the telly, and he looks up tiredly when Louis comes in. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes.

Louis shrugs. “I think I had a dream,” he says. “But I can’t remember it.”

Harry stares at him silently in the flickering light of the TV for a minute, and then lets out a breath and stretches his arms above his head. “You could ask Nick to see it,” he says.

“How could Nick see it?”

Harry pushes his hair off his forehead and yawns. “We’ve got, like, a memory drive,” he says, “and Nick could get to it and you could see it.”

Louis thinks about this for a moment before he picks up on Harry’s use of _we._ “Are you a droid?” he asks.

Harry looks at him with baleful eyes. “Yeah,” he says quietly, “yeah, I’m – Nick made me.”

“But you’re different,” Louis says.

“Yeah, well.” Harry snorts. “You used to be different, too.” He shifts in his seat so he doesn’t have to crane his neck to see Louis.

“Where do you serve?” Louis asks. He saw the Fleet uniform spilling out of Harry’s bag in the hallway earlier.

Harry picks at a loose thread on the couch. “H.M.S.S. Sagittarius, Lieutenant Styles, radar engineer,” he says, rattling his answer off dryly.

“What’s it like?” Louis says. He’s never served on a ship.

Harry laughs like he’s surprised by Louis’ question. “Shiny,” he says. “Cold.” He twists the thread from the couch between his thumb and forefinger. “Not as much fun as you’d think.”

Louis doesn’t like the sound of that.

“Nick says you can’t feel anything,” Harry says after a few more seconds of silence between them.

“There’s a chip,” Louis says immediately, pointing at the back of his neck.

Harry narrows his eyes. “What?”

“A chip,” Louis repeats. “It blocks the emotion processor so I can’t feel them.”

Harry is staring at him hard, now, not looking the least bit tired. “A chip.”

Louis shifts on his feet, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Yes. I think it doesn’t stop them, just blocks them somehow – ”

“Who did that?” Harry asks, standing up. He looks – angry, Louis guesses.

Louis doesn’t know what he said wrong. “There was – there was a guy at a bar,” he says. It’s fuzzy in his memory, hazy like he’s seeing it through a screen. Harry is walking closer. Louis takes a step back. “I don’t know, I asked him to. It’s not illegal,” he adds, remembering his conversation with Nick.

Harry stops walking and seems to deflate a little bit, his angry expression tilting downwards. “You asked him to?”

“Yes,” Louis says.

The answer doesn’t seem to make Harry feel any better. “Why would you do that?” he asks after a second of hesitation. He’s almost whispering, and his shoulders sag as he curls in on himself.

Louis blinks rapidly a few times. “I don't remember,” he says. He wishes Harry would stop looking at him like that. “I don't remember what happened before.”

Harry looks away from Louis and brings the heel of his palm up to one watery eye. “Shit, Louis,” he says. He drops his gaze to the floor. He’s quiet for a moment, rubbing one heel over the toes of his other foot, and when he speaks again it’s even quieter than before. “When did it happen?” he asks.

“A month ago,” Louis answers easily.

“Shit,” Harry says again. “Does Nick know?”

Louis nods.

“Then if he knows,” Harry says, stepping closer, “then he can fix you and – and you can remember again, and – ” he runs the back of his hand across his mouth. “You’ll be _fixed,_ ” he says.

Louis isn’t sure what’s got Harry all excited again. “I’m not broken,” he says, stepping backwards away from Harry. “Nick doesn’t need to do anything.”

Harry shakes his head. “But then you could feel again,” he says.

“Why would I want that?” Louis asks, and Harry flounders a little, his mouth working open and closed without making any sound. Louis shoulders his way past him. “Sorry,” he says, as he leaves the lounge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yoooo why do i bother adding notes here anyway i say literally nothing useful


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh gosh. you guys. i'm so surprised and flattered and pleased by all the responses i've gotten to this. it was, like, an immense project and the longest thing i've ever written and i'm just. yeah. so happy. i didn't think one conversation about androids would turn into this! anyways. on to the last chapter. :)

“So you can fix him, yeah?” Harry says to Nick. "You can figure it out and fix it."

“I can’t just open him up and start tweaking!” Nick says. “It doesn’t work that way, Harry.”

“Yes you can, you _made him_.”

Nick snorts. “Yes, I did, but he’s his own person, now, I can’t just change him.” He pauses. “I didn’t _make you_ so I could control what you do. I can’t change him without his permission, it’s not _moral_.”

“Is this really the time to be moralizing?” Harry asks, annoyed.

“Yes, it is, Harry,” Nick says shortly. “I’m not fiddling around with android parts just for fun, you know.”

“But he’s all wrong!” Harry shouts. “He’s not Louis anymore!”

“It’s no different from you,” Nick says, but he cuts himself off too quickly. There’s a pause.

“Different from me what?” Harry says. His voice is cold.

“Different from you bloody opening yourself up and trying to kill yourself,” Nick says, all in a rush.

Harry doesn’t speak for a minute. Then, “I threw up.”

“What?”

“I threw up,” Harry says again. “After he told me. I’ve never done that before.”

Nick lets out a long breath. “Jesus,” he says. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“I need _Louis_ ,” says Harry.

There’s a long pause. Then, “I’ll talk to him,” Nick says, “but I can’t make him do anything, Harry, if he did it to himself then I can’t just undo it, okay?”

“Please,” Harry says.

“Do you understand?” Nick says.

Harry makes a frustrated noise. “Yes, yes! You can show him his dreams. You don’t dream if you don’t feel.”

“That’s not entirely sound logic.”

“Please,” Harry says again, and Nick throws his hands in the air.

“All right,” Nick says. Then he’s quiet again for a minute. “I miss him too, you know,” he says after a while. “Just – just so you know, you’re not the only one.” Harry doesn’t respond, and Nick stands up out of his swivel chair.

Louis steps away from the doorway before Nick can see him. Nick catches up to him in the hallway. “Morning,” he says, resting his hand against on the small of Louis’ back and steering him down the hall to the kitchen. “Harry says you’ve been having dreams you can’t remember.”

Louis nods and hops up on the countertop.

“I could get to them for you, if you wanted?” Nick says. “So you could watch them.” The mess from Nick and Harry’s breakfast is still on the counter and in the sink and Louis wonders, briefly, if this terribly messy-looking Harry is actually serving on a starship like he told him.

“I’d like that,” Louis says.

Nick hums and presses down on the toaster button. “I’ve got two classes today.”

“So tonight then?”

“Or,” Nick says, dragging it out into several syllables, “I could get to your memory drive before I leave and you and Harry could look at them together.”

Nick’s kettle starts whistling. “That would be okay,” Louis says.

It only takes a few minutes and a little bit of pinching for Nick to get to Louis’ memory drive and hook it up to his lab computer. “These are your dreams here,” he says, circling a sub-folder with a finger. “The rest is your internal memory. Don’t mess with it,” he adds sternly.

Louis nods, and Nick looks at Harry. He’s been lingering in the doorway of the lab since Nick called him down and he eyes first the computer, then Louis, and then the cord connecting them with apprehension. “Are you sure this is gonna work?” he asks.

Nick rolls his eyes but smiles a little bit, too. “Yes, Harold,” he says, “it’s perfectly fine.”

“I’m just making sure,” Harry says. His frown deepens.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Nick says. He stands up and clasps Louis’ shoulder. “Have fun,” he says to Louis, and then to Harry, “try not to freak out, okay, spaceman?” Harry sticks out his lower lip a little bit and Nick pulls him into a hug before he grabs his bag and heads out.

Louis folds his hands in his lap and leans sideways a bit to look at the screen again. “How does it work?” he asks Harry. “Do we just click it, or?”

Harry steps closer, coming up behind Louis almost close enough to touch, but not quite. “Yeah, I think you just pick one and go.”

But he doesn’t move to click on one himself, so Louis picks the first one in the list. He hears whirring in his processor, and then the clip starts up. The picture is fuzzy, at first, out of focus and jumping around the screen, until it settles after a few seconds and Louis sees Harry – but his hair is pulled down over his forehead, and he’s grinning and waving Louis over to him. Louis recognizes the Outpost on Gamma Taurus IV and he wonders when Harry had been there. Then the clip shifts and Harry has his arm around Louis, now, leaning down and talking in a muffled voice Louis can’t make out – and then he leans closer and kisses Louis, and – this is a weird feeling, Louis can see the Harry-on-the-screen kissing Louis-on-the-screen, and he can almost feel the way Harry’s hands slide down his sides and rest on his hips, and when the scene suddenly changes and dream-Harry is pushing dream-Louis down on his bed in his room at the Outpost and they’re _still_ kissing –

Nick’s desk rattles when Harry wrenches open the door to the lab, and Louis turns away from the screen just in time to catch sight of Harry’s heel as he leaves and slams the door behind him again. Louis stops the dream-clip. Maybe they shouldn’t have started with that one.

When he’s seen all of his dreams, Louis carefully unplugs himself from the computer and after a moment of hesitation, rolls up the cord and places it on Nick’s desk. Most of his dreams were of Harry, either at the outpost or at an unfamiliar apartment, and Zayn and another tall man made a few appearances. Louis leaves the lab and almost trips over Harry’s legs, sprawled out from where he’s leaning against the wall across from the door.

“How was the movie?” Harry asks, not really looking at Louis.

“It was interesting,” Louis says. He’s not sure what kind of response Harry is looking for, so he continues, a little awkwardly, “do you know how Nick designed our imaginations?”

Harry looks up then. “That wasn’t, um.” He rubs a thumb over his lips. “That wasn’t your imagination.” When Louis stares at him in confusion, he says, “That actually happened.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Harry rubs at the corner of his eyes with his thumb in the sleeve of his jumper. “So. Yeah.”

“All of them?” says Louis. 

Harry shrugs. “I mean, I only saw the one, but. They were probably mostly true. Mine usually are.”

Louis thinks back to the only dream he hadn’t liked – there had been a dark, empty room and dream-him kept calling Harry’s name and Harry never showed up.  “Oh,” he says, quieter.

Harry pushes his hair out of his face. He’s got so many mannerisms like that, little things he does unconsciously, like licking his lips and turning his toes in when he stands and messing with his hair, and Louis glances down at himself. Dream-him had mannerisms; he doesn’t in the real world. Harry stands up, still leaning against the wall, and looks at Louis closely for a moment, before he shakes his head. “I thought it might – nevermind.”

“Fix me,” Louis says.

“Well,” Harry says, “yeah.” Louis doesn’t say anything.

 

*

 

“So I used to be like that,” Louis says to Nick, when he gets home.

“Like how?” Nick says.

Louis tries crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Like in the dreams. With Harry.”

“Oh,” Nick says, as though he’s just remembered. He rubs a hand down his face; he looks tired. “You mean, like, emotional?”

“I suppose,” Louis says, picking at a thread on his jeans.

Nick opens his fridge and glares into it. “You were, uh.” He chuckles as he closes the fridge, beer in hand. “Quite a character.” He raises his eyebrows.

 Louis nods. “Would you and Harry like me better if I was like that again?” he asks.

Nick sighs and crosses his arms, leaning back on the counter. “I don’t not like you,” he says, carefully, “I just miss the way you used to be.”

“Same difference,” Louis says.

Nick grunts a noise of assent and pops the lid of his beer. “Harry would like it.”

“Right,” says Louis, and then he falls silent, thinking about the Harry from his dreams versus the Harry sulking in Nick’s bedroom – he’s not sneaky, Louis always knows where he is – and himself from the dreams and himself now. Louis is a smart droid; he can do imitation.

“Okay,” he says, and hops down off his chair and goes to find Harry.

He finds him sitting on the floor in Nick’s room thumbing through his comm. Right. “Hi, Hazza,” Louis says. He kicks at the bottom of Harry’s boot, tries to make his mechanical limbs look casual. It throws him off-balance and he wobbles for a few seconds until he rights himself.

Harry forehead wrinkles and he frowns, watching Louis.  “Hi,” he says, after a pause.

Not the reaction Louis was hoping for. “Y’alright, then?” he asks, and tries out a grin.

Harry stares at him. “What are you doing,” he says, flatly.

Louis sits down next to him, just a hair’s width of space between them. “Nothing. Why, what are you doing?”

Harry’s jaw is clenched when Louis sees him this close. “Louis,” he says.

“Nick’s home,” Louis says. “I think he’s making dinner.” He reaches out and grabs Harry’s hand in his, twists it around awkwardly to try to fit their fingers together.

Harry inhales sharply and tugs it away, stumbles over his own feet standing up too fast. “Stop,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t do that.”

Louis scrambles up and steps towards him. “Hazza,” he says, though it sounds odd coming from his mouth.

“ _Stop_ ,” Harry says again, louder. “I know you’re not real.”

Louis stops. He knows he’s _real_ , and he’s not _hurt_ by it, but he doesn’t like it, either.

“Shit,” Harry says, when Louis’s smile falls. “I didn’t mean that. I mean. You’re not. You are real. But you’re not – acting real.” He stares at his hands, twisting together at his waist. “Right?” he asks. “I mean. You don’t remember.”

“Well,” Louis says. “No.”

Harry nods, still not looking at him. “Then don’t do that,” he says, and turns around, leaving Louis alone in Nick’s room.

Harry avoids Louis after that, sticking close to Nick when he’s home and finding ways to keep himself busy outside of the flat when he isn’t. Louis keeps replaying his dreams, trying to imitate the Louis in them, the Louis that Harry kisses and smiles at – but every time he tries to get close to him or hold his hand, Harry lets him do it just for a second, and then, like he’s suddenly remembered that he doesn’t like Louis, he tenses and pulls away.

 

*

 

“Went to Waitrose,” Harry mumbles one day, a week or so later, stepping into the flat and sliding his coat off. He’s been gone since the morning – “going to see Liam,” he’d said, and Louis had nodded and tried to pair a face with the name. Probably someone Harry met on board ship. Harry looks up when Louis comes over to take some of his shopping bags from him. “Thanks." 

“Sure, love,” Louis says, and Harry flinches.

“Liam says hello,” Harry says as they’re putting the groceries in the fridge.

“Have a good time, then?” Louis asks.

Harry moves Nick’s yogurt around in what looks like a meaningless way to Louis. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Good lad, that Liam,” Louis says agreeably.

“See, that,” Harry says, straightening up and staring down at Louis. “You _hate_ Liam.”

“I don’t feel emotions,” Louis says patiently.

“I know,” Harry says, huffing, “that’s my point. You don’t actually feel what you’re saying and you don’t even remember you hate him.” He turns around and goes to the kitchen table. His back is back is visibly tense even under the jumper he’s got on, and he rubs at his eyes with the sleeves. Louis turns back to the fridge and puts away the rest of the groceries until he hears the click of the lock and Nick’s voice in the hall. Harry looks up, too, and darts away before Louis can.

They’re talking in hushed voices when Louis finds them in the hall, Nick still half in his coat and Harry twisting the hem of his jumper and not really meeting Nick’s eyes. Neither of them notice Louis.

“I’ve already decided,” Harry says.

“Harry, please,” Nick says.

“ _Nick, please._ ”

“We should _talk about it_ ,” Nick hisses. “You can’t just up and go.”

Harry scowls. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he says. “Anyway, I’m easily forgettable.”

“Don’t say that,” Nick says. “You were the one who wanted to go to space.”

“But then I _came home_ ,” Harry says. It’s almost a whine.

Nick slides his coat down his arm further and glances down the hall. He startles minutely when he sees Louis. “You are not forgettable,” he says quietly to Harry, not looking away from Louis.

Harry looks up at him, follows his gaze to Louis. He frowns. “Really?” he says, turning back to Nick. “Because the last time someone wanted to forget me all he had to do was get a little implant.” He wheels around to face Louis again. “Why would you want to forget me?” he asks, and his eyes – his glass eyes, Louis reminds himself – are red and threatening to spill over with tears.

“Why would I want emotions?” Louis asks, bewildered. “They’re not doing you any favors.”

Harry’s face contorts into something pained and sad before he turns around again and leaves the flat without his coat. Nick follows him to the door. Then he closes the door softly, turns and finally gets to taking his coat off. He looks surprised to see Louis still standing in the hall. He sighs and shakes his head at him.

“You’re a twat,” Nick says sharply, and walks past Louis into the flat.

 

*

 

Harry doesn’t come back. Nick calls him from the landline in his kitchen after a day and has a hurried conversation with him that, as far as Louis can tell, doesn’t change anything. Nick stops smiling at Louis quite so much after that.

“I don’t understand,” Louis says for the 4th time one night while he and Nick watch a panel quiz show on TV.

“Then pretend,” Nick growls. “I hear you’re good at that.” Louis is silent for the rest of the show. 

Nick answers the door one day when Louis is reading over some of his students' papers – "might as well make yourself useful," Nick had said that morning when he dropped the stack of essays in front of him – and he comes back with the tall man Louis recognizes from his dreams. Louis waves politely and then turns back to the essay he’s reading. “ _The moment of duration is the same at Rome and at London, on the earth and on the stars, and throughout all the heavens,”_ he reads, and thinks, _Newton_ , when Nick clears his throat pointedly.

“Louis,” he says. “This is Liam.”

Liam smiles a little and waves.

“Hello,” Louis says.

“I’ll just leave you then,” Nick says, striding over and taking the papers back from Louis. Louis has to lift his hands off the table to let Nick take them and he watches until Nick disappears around the corner. Liam’s still standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands in his pockets, looking at Louis curiously.

“Hello,” Louis says again, because it seems appropriate.

Liam nods. “Hey, Louis.”

“I guess you’re someone I’m supposed to remember,” Louis says.

Liam purses his lips a bit. “Um, yeah. We worked together at the outpost.”

Louis nods. “Harry talks about you. But he says we didn’t get on.”

Liam laughs a startled little laugh. “It wasn’t that bad,” he says. He scuffs at the tile on the floor with one worn-out boot. “I think you were just, like, jealous.”

Louis tilts his head. “Why?”

Liam ignores the question and pulls out a chair to sit down across from Louis. He leans his elbows on the table and stares at Louis for a minute. It would be nice, Louis thinks, if people would stop staring at him. “Harry told me what you did,” Liam says then. “With the chip.”

“Okay,” Louis says. He’s not sure why it matters so much.

Liam squints and leans more forward on his forearms. “Do you get why that’s a big deal?” he says. “Why it hurt him?”

“No.”

“Really.”

“I’ve explained to him that I don’t see the appeal or benefit of having human emotions,” Louis says patiently.

“You can’t just decide to ignore them,” Liam says. “Aren’t you interested at all in what it was like?”

Louis ducks his head and picks at his fingernail. “I’ve seen what it was like,” he says.

“In your dreams,” Liam says.

“In my dreams,” Louis agrees. He hears Liam hum.

“And – you liked that, yeah?”

“Not really,” Louis says. “They weren’t all good.” He scratches at the wood of the tabletop with his thumbnail. “Doesn’t make sense to want those ones, does it?”

Liam is silent for a while. Louis wonders where Nick is hiding, and if he’s listening.

“He loves you,” Liam says eventually, hesitating like he isn’t sure whether or not to say it. “So I mean. There’s that.”

Louis shrugs. “But he left me,” he says. He’s pieced together the story from Nick and Harry and the bits of the dreams he tries not to think about. He pushes his hair off his forehead and looks up at Liam.

“Yeah,” Liam says slowly.

“That’s not what humans are supposed to do when they love someone,” Louis says. “I know that.”

“No,” says Liam. “But sometimes they do.”

Something about the conversation is making Louis’ skin crawl and he twists, trying to find a comfortable position in his chair. “Then it doesn’t make sense – ”

“I was there with him,” Liam interrupts. He speaks quickly and leans forward even farther over the table towards Louis. “On the ship. He was a mess, Lou. He’s a mess now, he’s hiding in my quarters at the base. And you’re sort of a mess, you know, like, for different reasons, but the point is, you’re both messed up but you both love each other and you’d be better off together instead of like this.” Liam pauses, takes a breath. He leans back to his side of the table. “I just. I wanted to say that.” The chair scrapes along the tile as he stands up. He fiddles with a set of keys in his hands and then looks at Louis again. “We’re leaving tomorrow night,” he says. “Shore leave’s over. So if you want to do something, you should. Now.”

Louis stands up, too, and walks out of the kitchen.

It shouldn’t bother him, is the thing. Louis knows this. He’s got a chip, he keeps repeating to himself. There’s a chip and he can’t feel anything and it does not bother him that Harry loves him or that Liam has his own opinions about how Louis should be. He rolls his shoulders as he paces in the bedroom. The back of his neck itches. Louis is in a dark room and he’s calling Harry’s name and he’s not answering and _why does that bother him_.

There’s a knock at the door and Louis jumps. When Nick pushes open the door he looks half-peeved and half hopeful for something, too. “Did Liam leave?” he asks.

Louis nods and keeps pacing. The back of his neck itches.

“Louis,” Nick says. He sounds worried.

“Emotions don’t make sense,” Louis says. It comes out louder than he intended.

Nick snorts and runs a hand through his hair. “No, they don’t.”

“What do you do with them?” Louis asks.

“You just sort of learn how to deal with it,” Nick says, shrugging. He sits on the end of the bed.

“I don’t want to hurt,” Louis says. He shakes his hands out in front of him. “What if it hurts?”

“What if what hurts?” Nick says.

“If I let you take it out,” Louis says. “And Harry still doesn’t like me, will that hurt?”

Nick takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “You want the chip out,” he says, lowly.

Louis feels like he’s floundering, unsure what to say anymore, and he waves his hands around a bit like it’ll get the point across. “Liam says Harry loves me.” He’s not answering Nick’s question. “And I shouldn’t want that but what if – I do.”

“I can take it out,” Nick says. “If you want me to.” He stands up and comes over to Louis and grabs his hands.

“I don’t want to hurt,” Louis says. He needs Nick to understand that, and he doesn’t know why.

Nick laughs. “It’s a package deal, sweetheart,” he says. When Louis starts to pull away, he holds on to his hands tighter. “But it’s worth it,” he says. “I wouldn’t have made you like that if I didn’t think it'd be worth it."

Louis closes his eyes. In his mind, Harry is holding his hand and wrapping his arm around his waist and playing with his hair and Harry is red-eyed and tired and empty-looking and Louis has given up understanding why his brain chip works the way it does at this moment.

“Please,” he says, quietly.

Nick pulls him against his chest. “Okay,” he says into Louis’ hair. “Okay.”

 

*

 

Louis doesn't want to wait, after Nick takes the blocking chip out, to see Harry. His processors are working a mile a minute and everything is so much _clearer_ now, the need and the affection and the possessiveness he'd believed wasn’t love. It _is_ love, and he's overwhelmed with it, shaking for a good minute with the first shock of it all. The chip was faulty, anyway – Nick grumbles and growls about shoddy workmanship but he runs his hands up and down Louis’ shoulders while he adjusts.

It hurts, too, remembering the last two months, and Louis cries onto Nick's shoulder. He’s so very, very ashamed of himself, and he curls up as far as he can into Nick's chest.

“It's okay, love,” Nick says, running his hand over Louis' back.

“It isn't, though,” Louis mumbles. “He'll never forgive me.”

Nick pulls his t-shirt off his chest and dabs it on Louis' eyes. “Yes, he will,” he says. “It's Harry.”

They're still in the lab and it's not the most comfortable place to be, but it's _home_. Louis can remember that now, and he wouldn't rather be anywhere else – except with Harry. But Nick tells him to stay put, Harry's coming over tomorrow anyway. Louis doesn't stop fidgeting all night.

Harry lets himself in the next morning. "I've got something for you," Nick had told him over the phone last night while Louis held his hand over his mouth to keep from yelling _hi, Hazza, I'm fixed, I'm here and I love you._ He still feels like yelling it.

“Nick,” Harry calls, stepping into the flat. “I'm home.”

And Louis can't do this any more, waiting on the couch and pretending his entire wiring system doesn't sing Harry's name over and over. He jumps off the couch, runs down the hall, and throws himself at Harry. Harry's strong, it'll be fine.

“Hazza!” he yells, as Harry stumbles backwards with a surprised yelp. Louis wraps his legs around Harry's waist and Harry's arms immediately reach around to hold him.

"Louis," Harry says. He's wide-eyed and scared and Louis doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for making him look like that. He tightens his arms around Harry's neck and kisses him hard.

“I love you,” he mumbles into Harry's mouth. He wants to say it every day over and over again.

Harry's eyes are squeezed shut and he's breathing hard. "Is this real," he says. His arms are still holding Louis up. "Louis, _please_."

Louis kisses him again so he doesn't have to hear his voice breaking. "Yes, Haz, god, get with the program," he says, pulling away and tugging on Harry's curls.

Harry opens his eyes then, and Louis thinks he's never going to look away. God, he's being dramatic. "Did Nick – " Harry says, searching Louis' face.

"Yes," Louis says simply. He brings his hand around and brushes his thumb under Harry's eye. "And I love you." 

Harry blinks at him.

“And I’m sorry,” Louis adds, because he is, not because he’s trying to say the right thing. He ducks his gaze away and says, quickly, because Harry needs to know it, “It just hurt so much and I didn’t want to hurt anymore.”

Instead of dropping him like he’d expected, Harry tightens his arm around Louis’ waist. “Louis,” he breathes out, like he can’t quite believe it yet. “I love you so much.” His voice sounds thick when he says, “I wanted to tell you since I left.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis says again.

Harry lets up his grip and lowers Louis gently to his feet, keeping him tucked close into his chest. “I shouldn’t have gone,” he says. He brings one hand up to brush his thumb along Louis’ cheekbone.

Louis blushes under the touch. “Gone where?” he asks.

Harry drops his hand back to Louis’ hip and tucks his head into Louis’ neck, like he’s embarrassed. “You know,” he says, words muffled. “Space.”

Louis squeezes the back of Harry’s neck gently. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again,” he says, panic building in his chest. He tightens his arms around Harry’s shoulder, tries to cement the feeling of his body next to his in his memory forever.

“I know,” says Harry. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

“I told you to go,” Louis says. He wishes he hadn’t told him to, and tangles his fingers in the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck. “You wanted to go see the stars." 

“’S not worth it without you,” Harry says.

Louis thinks that humans aren’t ever as honest as Harry is. He bends his neck down so his mouth is close to Harry’s ear, swallows down his panic and says, almost in a whisper, “please don’t leave me again.”

“I don’t want to,” Harry says, a little desperately. He sneaks the fingers of his right hand under Louis’ waistband and squeezes slightly.

“But.”

Harry pulls his head away from Louis’ neck and looks at him. “But we’re underway tonight,” he says. “If I had known I would’ve quit, but – ”

Louis cuts him off, frowning. “You can’t just quit,” he says, and bites his lip. “Why would you do that?” He can be stupidly in love and practical at the same time. Hopefully.

Harry shrugs. “To be with you, I guess.”

“That’s stupid,” Louis says. “You’ve got a job.”

“I’ve got _you_ ,” Harry says.

Louis looks down. “You shouldn’t want me,” he says. “I’m not a very good droid.”

Harry’s fingers tighten almost painfully into Louis’ hips. “Don’t say that,” he says, ducking his head to meet Louis’ eyes. “You’re the _best_ droid.”

Louis frowns harder and “But I – ”

“Stop,” Harry says, ducking forward and kissing him. “I don’t care.”

“Haz,” Louis starts to say again, but Harry kisses him again, over and over and all over his face, until Louis starts to laugh.

“If you’re done with him, I’d like to see young Harold too,” Nick says from the other room. Louis smiles and leans forward to press his nose into Harry’s collarbone, where his shirt falls open a little bit, before sliding his arms down to take Harry’s hand in his and lead him down the hall.

 

*

 

Harry does leave that night, though Liam almost has to drag him away. “I’ll come back,” he says, and “we’ll figure it out,” over and over, not like last time, hurried goodbyes and too little time to really figure out what was happening. Harry kisses Louis and Louis believes him.

Louis goes back to work, too. He comms Zayn, and Zayn comms somebody, and somebody comms Nick, and Louis gets on a transport back to the Gamma Taurus system a week later. The outpost isn’t the same without Harry; it’s not _home_ without Harry, but he’s got Niall and Zayn and a new engineer named Josh, and it’s good. When he gets the comm that his request to work on the Sagittarius has been approved, Niall even flies out to congratulate him.

Liam walks Louis down the corridor of the starship on his first night on board. It’s all a bit overwhelming, being out in the vastness of space, but he likes the solid line of Liam’s body next to his. He’s made a mental note to be nicer. Louis knows he owes a lot of his job to Liam’s recommendation, and, more importantly, he knows he owes his memories to Liam’s pep talk in Nick’s kitchen.

Liam stops them in front of a wide door to one of the viewing decks and nods inside, where Louis can see Harry curled up, watching the stars. He stops breathing for a moment. It’s been two months, two days, and eleven hours since Louis saw Harry last, and he doesn’t even pretend he hasn’t been counting, because he knows Harry has been too. Louis’ shoulders slump a little bit.

“Thanks,” he says to Liam, and he hopes Liam knows he doesn’t just mean _for showing me around_. Liam nods and smiles like he does, and nudges Louis towards the door.

The deck is dark and silent except for the _snick_ of the door as it slides open and closes behind Louis. Harry doesn’t look up at the noise, just keeps staring out of the viewscreen. Louis almost, almost, with a tiny part of him, doesn’t want to say anything because Harry looks so good where he is, but the rest of him is screaming to be near him.

“Hey, Hazza,” he says quietly, and Harry spins around.

“Lou!” Harry shouts. He’s up on his feet in an instant, tripping over his own big feet, and Louis meets him halfway across the room. He loses his balance a bit from running into Harry too hard. Harry catches him anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you were coming on board?” Harry asks between one delighted kiss and another. Louis missed the way Harry’s hands feel on his face. Harry’s breathless and excited and bright-eyed and Louis wants to kiss him again before he says anything else, so he does.

“I like surprises,” Louis says when he pulls back just enough to talk. “They’re more romantic.”

Harry blushes and knocks his forehead against Louis’. “I’ve been nervous for weeks.”

“Sorry,” Louis says with a smile. He isn't really. He twists his fingers into the front of Harry’s shirt and nods over Harry’s shoulder. He can't name any of the constellations out here. “Do you want to look at the stars with me?” he asks. _Forever,_ he adds, in his mind.

Harry stares at him for a moment longer, beaming, and then he says, “Of course I do,” and Louis knows he means forever, too.

Harry’s still got scars all down his left side, but they’re hidden under his Fleet uniform, and the back of Louis’ neck still itches sometimes, but Louis just doesn’t think about it much – and Louis figures they’ve both got their flaws and they’ve got their history, but they’ve ended up where they always should have been.

Louis curls his arm around Harry’s waist.  “Good,” he says, smiling. “I’ve got all night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! you are great. come say hello on [tumblr](http://tinymercilessking.tumblr.com) if you want :)
> 
> xx
> 
> EDIT: now with a [timestamp](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3152264)
> 
> EDIT 2: now with a [prequel timestamp](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4336841)


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